The House Commerce Committee approved by a 47-0 roll-call vote a cybersecurity bill that would amend the Federal Power Act to enable FERC to quickly address security threats to the electric grid. The committee approved by voice vote a manager’s amendment that included tweaks requiring notification of Congress whenever the president determines a grid security threat exists, and to require FERC consultation with the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC). Democratic and Republican members agreed the bill (HR-5026) would improve national security and saluted friendly work between parties.

The U.S. State Department’s focus on keeping the Internet open is much bigger than just Google and China, said Alex Ross, senior adviser on innovation to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on C-SPAN’s The Communicators, in an interview to be broadcast this weekend. But Ross also said he sees signs that Clinton’s stand in favor of Internet freedom made in a Jan. 21 speech is bearing fruit.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Satellite executives see broadband, access to the mass market, and the blurring of civil, military, and commercial services as the source of future growth in the industry, they said at the National Space Symposium. The executives, from different parts of the satellite industry, spoke on a panel about emerging applications.

Verizon is building a new LTE innovation center that largely focuses on devices, Chief Technology Officer Dick Lynch said in an interview. Meanwhile, the carrier is going beyond LTE trials, targeting year-end for some commercial launches, he said.

Wireless carriers have been busy at the FCC in recent days on a roaming item scheduled for a vote next week. It’s an order that would narrow the in-market exclusion, approved in 2007 as part of the commission’s automatic roaming rules, and seek further comment on data roaming. The commission released its sunshine notice for the meeting late Wednesday, cutting off lobbying.

The FBI’s use of “exigent letters” to get phone records from telecommunications companies without first going through a legal process may lead to revision of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and possibly the firing of the FBI’s top lawyer, officials indicated. The House Judiciary Constitution Subcommittee grilled FBI General Counsel Valerie Caproni at a hearing Wednesday about her office’s role in the controversy, the subject of a 300-page report by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine. His office previously released reports on abuses of National Security Letters, which the FBI issued to organizations demanding phone, e-mail and other business records. Their gag-order requirement doomed the Patriot Act provision in court (CD Sept 7/07 p8).

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski repeatedly deflected senators’ questions Wednesday on how the commission will respond to the recent net neutrality decision by the D.C. Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. At a Senate Commerce Committee hearing, Genachowski said the FCC has all the authority it needs to carry out proposals in the National Broadband Plan. Democratic senators seemed open to reclassifying broadband under Title II of the Communications Act, at least as a stopgap before a new law. Republicans sharply disagreed. “The legitimacy of the agency would be seriously compromised” if the FCC reclassifies broadband as a common-carrier service without instructions from Congress, said Ranking Member Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.

All eyes are on Chairman Julius Genachowski on one of the first controversial orders before the FCC since he became chairman: A proposal to reclassify broadband under Title II of the Communications Act in the aftermath of the Comcast v. FCC decision. He faced repeated questions Wednesday, at a Senate Commerce hearing on the National Broadband Plan, about his position on whether the commission needs to reclassify broadband Wednesday. But he offered little beyond what he has said since the decision came down last week. (See related report in this issue).

The House passed caller ID spoofing and spectrum inventory legislation, in votes under suspension of the rules Wednesday. It also passed a tax reform bill (HR-3994) that would remove a requirement that companies and employees keep track of personal calls on employer-supplied cellphones. All the bills had bipartisan support, but the inventory bill faced a roadblock on its first presentation when a single representative objected, forcing a recorded vote later in the afternoon. A suspension vote prevents amendments and requires a two-thirds majority.

LAS VEGAS -- Three FCC commissioners told NAB they support studying retransmission consent in the wake of a petition from pay-TV operators to modify the commission’s approach to broadcast carriage disputes. But they didn’t all take a position on how the agency should move forward. “I think it’s important to study the issue,” Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said. But it’s also important to get a sense of the true scope of the problem, she said: “It’s always the 1 percent or 5 percent of the issue that draws the policy and decisions and that doesn’t always work in our best interest."