Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., filed cloture Monday for the nomination of Wilbur Ross as commerce secretary. Cloture also was filed for several other nominations, including Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., for director of the Office of Management and Budget. Precise timing for a floor vote wasn't announced. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters last week he hoped Ross’ nomination could clear the floor this week (see 1702070054). Congress isn't scheduled to be in session next week. The Senate confirmed Linda McMahon as administrator of the Small Business Administration Tuesday in an 81-19 vote.

In brief remarks Thursday after he was sworn in as President Donald Trump's attorney general, Jeff Sessions said he would use DOJ effectively to deal with an increased threat from terrorism, "end the lawlessness" from immigration that threatens the public safety and undermines American wages, and counter the "dangerous permanent trend" of the rise in crime. Justice will be "focused on preserving and protecting the Constitution and the safety of this country," he said in a Facebook streamed video. His nomination was opposed by Democrats and many civil liberties and privacy groups that said he couldn't be independent from the administration and he supported more surveillance and back doors to encrypted devices and communications (see 1701310005, 1701240003, 1701180079, 1701110069 and 1701090038). Right after the Senate confirmed Sessions 52-47 Wednesday night, the American Civil Liberties Union tweeted that it will sue the former Alabama Republican senator if he violates the Constitution. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a statement after the vote that Sessions will enforce laws "regardless of whether he supported them while in Congress" and he will be independent.

Commerce secretary nominee Wilbur Ross will hopefully receive a Senate floor vote “in the tranche next week,” Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters Tuesday. “We’ll try and do as many as we can, as many as the Democrats will let us do in the amount of time that we have. It’s really up to them. But I would like to see him go next week.” He predicted all of the administration nominees will get confirmed eventually.

Reps. Tom Marino, R-Pa., Judy Chu, D-Calif., and Barbara Comstock, R-Va., reintroduced their Copyright Office for the Digital Economy Act (HR-890) Monday. The bill, originally filed during the 114th Congress, would separate the CO from the Library of Congress but keep it within the legislative branch. HR-890 also would require the CO’s director to regularly study the office’s IT systems to ensure those systems are “meeting the needs of the copyright community, including internal and external.” The introduction followed less than a week after comments were due on a CO-centric policy proposal by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and committee ranking member John Conyers, D-Mich. (see 1701310047). The Goodlatte/Conyers proposal suggested giving the office more autonomy from the LOC (see 1612080061 and 1612220048). Goodlatte said last week he plans to act “soon” on the proposal (see 1702010069). The Copyright Alliance believes HR-890 “addresses imperative modernization issues and, in conjunction with the” Goodlatte/Conyers proposal, is "an important step toward modernizing the” CO, said CEO Keith Kupferschmid in a statement. “Modernization of the U.S. Copyright Office is crucial not just to those of us in the copyright community, but to the public and many others who rely upon the [CO's] services. Regardless of a stakeholder’s views on copyright policy, nearly everyone agrees that the [CO] cannot continue operating under its current structure and is in dire need of modernization.”

Reps. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, and Jared Polis, D-Colo., reintroduced their You Own Devices Act (YODA) Tuesday. HR-905, previously bowed during the 113th and 114th Congresses, would amend Copyright Act Section 109 to allow consumers to resell or lease their software (see 1502110039). “YODA simply states that your device belongs to you,” Farenthold said in a news release. “If you wish to sell that device, the software that enables it to work is transferred along with it, and that any right you have to security and bug fixing of that software is transferred as well.” The bill “will cut red tape and allow people to sell or give away devices without being strangled by paperwork and empty legal threats,” Polis said.

The Email Privacy Act, which unanimously passed the House last year, will be up for a floor vote next week, according to a House website. Reintroduced by Reps. Kevin Yoder, R-Kan., and Jared Polis, D-Colo., more than three weeks ago (see 1701090017), HR-387 updates the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act by closing a loophole that allows law enforcement to access people's emails older than 180 days stored in third-party servers without a warrant. Last year, the measure passed 419-0 in the House. Although the bill attracted significant support in Senate, its backers withdrew the legislation after a controversial amendment was introduced that would have widened FBI access to Americans' sensitive data online (see 1606090007).

Despite the enthusiasm for a U.S. free trade agreement with the U.K. after the latter voted to leave the EU (see 1606280024), a formal free trade agreement would be at least two years off, witnesses said during a Wednesday hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Trade and Europe subcommittees. Witnesses and lawmakers largely supported an eventual agreement, though intellectual property issues could arise. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., asked about harmonization of IP protections around the world, which have so far "failed." Harmonization is tougher on a bilateral basis because it's done "one on one," as opposed to with many countries, which can lead to many agreements that say "slightly different things," said Cato Institute Trade Policy Analyst Simon Lester. The U.S. could push harder on such an issue since it has more leverage, he said. Issa noted that in the U.K., terrestrial radio plays result in royalties for the artists, but not in the U.S., and asked whether that could be something "on the table" for possible alignment between the countries. "Everything is on the table" and alignment on an issue could also be used as a "precedent" for discussions with other countries, Lester said.

Lawmakers should rethink their approach to addressing internet taxes to focus on “the consumption of goods and services by taxpayer-consumers” rather than continue the controversial debate over internet sales taxes, said Bronwyn Howell, visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute's Center for Internet, Communications and Technology Policy, in a Monday blog post. The debate over internet sales tax bills like the Remote Transactions Parity Act and the Marketplace Fairness Act has become a stalemate in recent Congresses. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., was seen as attempting to bridge that gap last year when he released a draft of his long-awaited Online Sales Tax Simplification Act (see 1608250062). The existing tax collection process “leads, in the case of sales and consumption taxes in particular, to the perception that these taxes are a liability on producers and not consumers,” Howell said. “At best, it appears that taxes collected in this manner will be little more than ‘voluntary donations’ by complying firms.” The “focus on supplying firms as the entity of interest, and not the act of consumption, means a small number of high volume/value firms such as Amazon and Netflix become targets for enforcement, but a large number of firms each making only a small number of sales fall under the radar,” Howell said. “Turning vendor firms into tax agents for a large and likely increasing number of governments, all with potentially different tax rates and collection rules, imposes a significant transaction cost burden.”

The Senate Commerce Committee scheduled a hearing for 10 a.m. Wednesday in 216 Hart called “A Growth Agenda: Reducing Unnecessary Regulatory Burdens.” CTA CEO Gary Shapiro is among witnesses.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., plans to outline the committee’s agenda for the 115th Congress during a Wednesday Federalist Society event, a committee spokeswoman confirmed Thursday. House Judiciary is expected among other things to take up the Email Privacy Act to update the three-decade-old Electronic Communications Privacy Act and consider legislation to revamp copyright and patent litigation laws. Goodlatte’s speech will come the day after comments are due in to House Judiciary on a joint proposal by Goodlatte and committee ranking member John Conyers, D-Mich., on Copyright Office-centric issues. The proposal mentioned granting the CO more autonomy from the Library of Congress (see 1612080061).