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Lawmakers’ attempts to attach an Internet sales tax to a bill preventing a tax on Internet access topped a group of Web companies’ list of bad laws for 2014.

The legislative maneuver was the top issue on a “watchlist for ugly laws” released by the trade group NetChoice, which includes Web titans like Google, Facebook, eBay and AOL.

Items on NetChoice’s semi-regular list of troublesome laws are ranked by how much harm they could cause the online economy and the chances of them being implemented.

[Commentary] The infrastructure needed to support our mobile use needs to be modern and flexible, but does not get the focus it warrants in policy debates. The good news is the Federal Communications Commission is in a position to take critical steps to facilitate smarter and faster deployments.

First , the FCC should limit the ability of state and local authorities to delay the collocation and replacement of wireless infrastructure that have minimal impact on communities.

Second, the FCC should permit the speedy deployment of temporary towers used to respond to local emergencies and newsworthy events and to assist local law enforcement.

Third, the FCC should curtail unnecessary delays at the local level by imposing a 45-day limit on collocation approvals. After all, as Congress recognized, these wireless facilities already have received the necessary zoning approval, so why impose further impediments?

Fourth, the small size and flexible placement of DAS and small cells warrant streamlining the environmental and historic review processes -- the adoption of certain exclusions -- deployment of these facilities.

[Baker is president and CEO of CTIA - The Wireless Association]

Broadcast and cable television companies are pushing back against the Federal Communications Commission’s new plans for emergency alert messages. The National Cable and Telecommunications Association and the National Association of Broadcasters told the FCC that its new proposed guidelines for the text that crawls at the top of the screen during a flood, snowstorm or other emergency aren’t necessary and could be expensive.

“Standardizing the appearance of EAS [Emergency Alert Service] messages for speed and size is unnecessary to address accessibility concerns and would lead to significant cost with little benefit,” the NCTA told the FCC.

Comcast’s proposed merger with Time Warner Cable would give the company "unprecedented" power, Sen Al Franken (D-MN) warned the Federal Communications Commission.

Sen Franken, who is up for re-election in 2014, told the FCC that the combination of the country's two largest cable companies “would position Comcast as a veritable gatekeeper over vast swaths of the nation's telecommunications industry, resulting in higher prices, fewer choices, and worse service for consumers in Minnesota and across the country."

“The proposed acquisition also would threaten innovation and economic activity on the Internet, and it would jeopardize the free flow of information and ideas on which our democracy depends,” he added. “Because the proposed acquisition does not advance the public interest -- but, rather, is inimical to it – [the merger] must be rejected.”

Sen Lamar Alexander (R-TN) is pressing for a ban on passengers making cellphone calls during flights. Sen Alexander threw his support behind the Department of Transportation, which is expected to propose such a measure in December.

“I’m glad the Department of Transportation is serious about putting the brakes on a bad idea before it takes flight,” Sen Alexander said. The senator didn’t cite safety concerns, instead arguing that in-flight phone calls would be a sheer annoyance to other passengers forced to listen in on private conversations.

The Bitcoin industry has formed a political action committee that it could use to shower lawmakers and party committees with donations.

The Chamber of Digital Commerce, a month-old trade group for digital currencies and assets like Bitcoin, registered a political spending group with the Federal Election Commission in August.

The group is still in its infancy and has no immediate plans to support individual candidates, CEO Perianne Boring said. Still, formation of the PAC is a sign of increasing maturity for Bitcoin and a signal that politicians could face political pressure to support virtual currencies.

Sen Ed Markey (D-MA) and Rep Mike Doyle (D-PA) are continuing to pressure the Federal Communications Commission to intervene where state laws keep cities from creating local Internet networks.

Local governments’ attempts to create opportunities for high-speed Internet “shouldn’t be restricted by technologically unsophisticated state governments,” Rep Doyle said. He “strongly” encouraged FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler “and the FCC to take quick and decisive action to lift restrictions that limit or prevent communities from addressing their own broadband needs.”

A small wireless company CREDO and tens of thousands of supporters are calling on President Barack Obama to fire CIA Director John Brennan over a report that showed his agency hacked into Senate computers.

CREDO Action -- the advocacy wing of CREDO -- presented the White House with a petition calling on President Obama to fire Brennan.

Comcast is making the case for regulators to approve its proposed $45 billion merger with Time Warner Cable.

In meetings with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen and others from the company pushed back on critics’ claims that the merger would hurt competition, according to new filings at the agency.

Comcast repeated its commitment to the agency's largely defunct network neutrality rules -- a condition of Comcast's merger with NBCUniversal in 2011 -- and said the merger would not harm broadband competition.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) wants more than just Beltway views heard as the rules governing Internet traffic are rewritten.

“Holding roundtables across the country will help ensure that Americans have a meaningful opportunity to participate” as the Federal Communications Commission tries to fix its network neutrality rules, Sen Leahy wrote in a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler.