Agenda

The Senate Commerce Committee held an oversight hearing of the Federal Communications Commission on August 16. When he announced the hearing, Committee Chairman John Thune (R-SD) said, “From efforts to better utilize spectrum powering our wireless economy to expanding rural broadband access, combatting robocalls, and reviewing the media landscape, the FCC and its operations are critically important.

National advocacy groups including the ACLU, CREDO Action, Demand Progress, Fight for the Future and Free Press Action Fund are sending a questionnaire to 38 members of Congress — and those challenging them in the upcoming midterm elections — about the vote to restore net neutrality via the Congressional Review Act in the House, which needs a simple majority to pass. For incumbents: “Have you signed, or do you firmly commit within the next 30 calendar days to sign, the discharge petition for the House net neutrality CRA, and will you vote in favor of the net neutrality CRA if it comes up fo

Sen Tom Udall (D-NM) has signaled he will use some of his time questioning Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai at an Aug 16 FCC oversight hearing to make sure he has journalists' backs. That is the same day journalist organizations are getting together to push back on President Donald Trump's attacks on mainstream media as fake news outlets in league with his Democrat opponents to undermine his presidency and policies. Sen Udall will call on Chairman Pai "to defend the free press in light of repeated attacks from President Trump and members of his administration."

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai is set to testify Aug 16 in front of a Senate oversight committee. He's certain to have to respond to questions while there about false statements he and some of his subordinates made to lawmakers about an incident in 2017 in which the agency's computer systems got overwhelmed during the comment period for its then-ongoing net-neutrality proceeding. Chairman Pai has tried to distance himself from those false statements, blaming them on the agency's former chief information officer, David Bray.

Sinclair Broadcasting has a right to establish that that they did not engage in “misrepresentations and/or lack of candor”—an assertion by the Federal Communications Commission—in matters related to its $3.9 billion acquisition of Tribune Media. The FCC has designated the matter for an administrative hearing before an administrative law judge. That hearing must go forward. The character of the licensee is an important component in determining whether the party is a fit trustee for the public’s airwaves.

Sen. Mark Warner’s proposals to regulate social media platforms are by far the most ambitious to come from Congress.  Here, three experts discuss the pros and cons: 1) Beton Senior Fellow and Public Advocate Gigi Sohn. She is also a Distinguished Fellow at the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy. 2) Daniel Crane, an antitrust law expert and the Frederick Paul Furth Sr. Professor of Law at the University of Michigan. 3) Hal Singer, an antitrust economist and senior fellow of the George Washington Institute of Public Policy.

California should reject requests by industry groups to water down the state's new privacy law, a coalition of 20 advocacy groups said in a new letter to lawmakers. "The sky is not falling, as industry suggests," said the ACLU of California, Berkeley Media Studies Group, Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Action, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge and other advocacy groups. "The law and its particulars do not pose a threat to the California economy," they write.

The Federal Communications Commission is proposing to maintain the US broadband standard at the current level of 25Mbps downstream and 3Mbps upstream. That's the speed standard the FCC uses each year to determine whether advanced telecommunications capabilities are "being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion." FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel has called on the FCC to raise it, but a new proceeding launched at the FCC this week proposes keeping the standard the same for another year.

Sinclair Broadcast Group’s singularly nasty breakup with Tribune Media may put a serious damper on the conservative-leaning broadcast giant's ability to expand, despite its persisting hunger to do so. Sinclair insists it will press on with business as usual and is already eyeing other acquisition targets in its bid to expand into a full-fledged conservative media titan on par with Fox News.