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With the U.S. unemployment rate hovering around 9 percent, job creation is one of the rare issues that can cross party lines. A bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Reps. Doris Matsui (D-CA) and Anna Eshoo (D-CA), is pushing legislation designed to simplify and strengthen the research and development tax credit by increasing it from 14 percent to 20 percent and making it permanent for businesses and investors.

The legislation could be of particular benefit to Northern California's growing alternative energy industry and high-tech companies in Silicon Valley. The American Research and Competitiveness Act of 2011 is co-sponsored by Rep. John Larson (D-CT), as well as Reps Erick Paulsen (R-MN), Kevin Brady (R-TX) and Michael McCaul (R-TX). If passed, the legislation would cost about $100 billion over 10 years. President Obama's proposed 2012 budget supports making the R&D credit permanent and expanding it by 20 percent. Richer incentives for R&D would motivate companies to invest more in innovation. The expansion of the tax credit could "spur the creation of 162,000 jobs in the short run," according to a study released by the Information Technology and Innovation Fund in 2010. That group also estimated a credit expansion would lead to a $66 billion increase to the annual GDP and nearly 4,000 new American patents.

Two years after Obama pledged to reverse the Bush administration’s penchant for secrecy and comply more closely with the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, The Associated Press grapples with many of the same frustrating roadblocks and head-scratching inconsistencies.

Several recent examples are described below. Exasperating delays and denials also affect ordinary citizens, researchers and businesses, and they frustrate the administration’s goal to be the most transparent in history. Obama’s administration this week defended its progress in disclosing more information rapidly and reducing backlogs of requests for information. Agencies also are posting online large sets of data on auto safety, air quality, crime, health care and employment, which means fewer requests have to be filed in the first place, they said. “Greater transparency and a more open government are happening right now,” said Melanie Pustay, director of the Justice Department’s Office of Information Policy. Her office is responsible for government-wide compliance with the Freedom of Information Act. Yet it remains a hair-pulling, exhausting experience to ask for federal records from the government. The law can be complicated even when it’s applied properly. Patience is a virtue.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski announced that the following items will be on the tentative agenda for the next open meeting scheduled for Thursday, April 7, 2011:

1. Pole Attachment Report and Order and Order on Reconsideration: An Order that reforms the Commission's access, rates, and enforcement rules for utility pole attachments, reducing barriers to deployment and availability of broadband and other wireline and wireless services, and promoting competition.
2. Accelerating Broadband Deployment NOI: A Notice of Inquiry seeking comment on key challenges and best practices in expanding the reach and reducing the cost of broadband deployment, including by improving policies for access to government rights of way and wireless facility siting requirements.
3. Data Roaming Second Report and Order: A Second Report and Order that adopts a rule requiring facilities-based providers of commercial mobile data services to offer data roaming arrangements to other such providers on commercially reasonable terms and conditions, subject to certain limitations.
4. Signal Boosters Declaratory Ruling, NPRM, and Order: A Declaratory Ruling, NPRM and Order that helps to fill gaps in wireless coverage and expands broadband in rural and difficult-to-serve areas, while protecting wireless networks from harm.
5. Structure and Practices of Video Relay Service Program: Report and Order will adopt rules to detect and prevent fraud and abuse in the provision of video relay service ("VRS"). Also, a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking proposes to require all VRS providers to obtain certification from the FCC under new, tighter certification procedures in order to receive compensation from the TRS Fund.
6. Reliability and Continuity of Communications Networks NOI: A Notice of Inquiry seeking comment on existing reliability standards for communications networks, including broadband networks, and ways to further strengthen the reliability and continuity of communications networks to avoid disruptions of service during major emergencies, such as large-scale natural and man-made disasters.

[Commentary] In the discussions about the future of federal funding, specifically Public Telecommunications Facilities Program (PTFP) and Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) funding, there’s been nodding attention paid to its disproportionate impact on rural America. But little attention is paid to what that really means in practice.

Public broadcasting looks vastly different in the various communities it serves, and that is intentional. PBS and NPR are the best-known public media, but they are not its only incarnations. Public broadcasting is a vast network of 1,300 individual and independent stations, serving defined local areas, and answerable to their community’s unique needs. In an era of unchecked media consolidation that has made so much of our news and entertainment sound the same, public broadcasting still embraces its local roots and local voice.

Thirty-nine of those 1,300 stations are located on, and primarily serve, Native communities. Thirty-three more are waiting to be built. A centuries-long legacy of isolation and economic and cultural exploitation has kept Native people poor and powerless, but that is starting to change. Media have a vital role to play in supporting economic and community development, preserving and building cultural foundations, and encouraging political and civic engagement on tribal lands. The capacity of Native people to access, operate, produce, participate in and control our own media is critical to the future of the 565 Native Nations in this country who have long been invisible or misrepresented in media.

Mainstream commercial media coverage of Native communities is rare, so public radio is a vital resource on Native lands. If tribal stations go dark, as they likely will if funding is cut, a vital source of information in and out of Indian Country is lost. Where tribal newspapers are disappearing, basic 911 and emergency services still don't exist, and broadband penetration is at less than 10 percent, the picture is dire. Radio provides a lifeline to Native communities, one that cannot be replaced.

Native public radio is local radio. It reaches vast stretches of tribal lands that still hold pockets of villages and isolated homes. When trouble comes in the form of flash floods, wildfire, tornadoes or other matters of public safety, Native radio is the first and often only information source. And when there is occasion for celebration, Native radio links families, clans, and communities with news of births, marriages, school events and sports victories. Tribal governments, Indian Health services and others use Native radio to help inform, educate and mobilize their constituents. And these stations carry on the oral traditions of a cultural heritage centuries in existence, bringing a contemporary voice to Native languages.