InsideSources

Some House and Senate Democrats combined forces Thursday to give the Federal Communications Commission’s plan to “unlock” the set-top box an extra bump on Capitol Hill, where a growing number of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are voicing their concerns with the plan to open pay-TV providers video content to third-party devices.

Top billing on Thursday’s event included tech heavyweight Rep. Anna Eshoo of California, ranking Democrat on the House Communications and Technology Subcommittee, and Democrat Sens. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, both of whom sit on the Senate Communications, Technology, Innovation and Internet Subcommittee charged with overseeing the FCC.

“Today, tens of millions of cable customers have no choice but to pay a monthly fee for the ‘privilege’ of renting a cable box that has changed little in decades,” said Eshoo, who represents parts of Silicon Valley. “Opponents of the FCC’s proposal to unlock the cable box have thrown together a salad of criticisms to derail it and have kept the market locked up for 20 years at a yearly intake of $20 billion. It’s time for innovation and competition in this market so consumers can finally win.”

Republicans and Democrats in both chambers have been putting pressure on FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to stall the proposal until studies at the commission and in Congress can assess their impact on the market, citing concerns about their potential to disadvantage minority programmers and endanger pay-TV providers’ copyright and advertising control.

“It’s been 20 years since we passed my provision in the 1996 Telecommunications Act to make the set-top marketplace a centerpiece of our telecommunications universe,” Markey said. “We don’t need any more studies to understand the problem – bloated rental fees, nominal choice, and virtually no competition in the set-top box marketplace. The solution is simple: no fees, greater competition and more consumer choice.”

In his defense of the rules, Wheeler has frequently cited Section 629 of the Communications Act, which states the commission “shall” ensure consumers have access to competitive options in the pay-TV navigation device market — a portion of the law Markey helped write.

“The average household is forced into fees of more than $200 a year for set-top boxes – an unjust and unjustifiable expense,” Blumenthal added. “Consumers deserve competitive options in accessing technology and television, not exorbitant prices dictated by monopolistic cable companies.”

The only study the FCC cited in the rulemaking was conducted by Markey and Blumenthal’s offices. Their survey found the country’s biggest cable companies charge the average U.S. household $231 annually in set-top box rental fees, pulling in almost $20 billion every year for providers.

Lawmakers were joined by industry stakeholders including BET founder Bob Johnson, who criticized Congressional Black Caucus member and New York Democrat Rep. Yvette Clarke for supporting a handful of dominant minority programmer executives who oppose the rules.

“Increasing the accessibility of streaming content would provide minority programmers assistance in overcoming the barriers such as access to capital and carriage on cable, which has historically kept them from entering the marketplace,” Johnson said.

The former BET CEO added the combination of streaming functionality and pay-TV content on one device “puts all content on an equal footing.”

Clarke was joined by current BET CEO Debra Lee during a press conference in May, where she warned “competitors to cable will get BET programming for free … if the FCC rule takes away our ability to control the distribution of our content.”

Lee said BET could only afford to produce programming with ad revenue a third party device maker could undercut with its own ads.

Potential third-party device makers were also represented. Chip Pickering, CEO of INCOMPAS — a trade group whose membership includes Google — said it was time to dismantle the market for “rent-a-boxes that block both innovation and internet streaming content.”

Wheeler has specifically cited Google as one of the potential market entrants should the rules be adopted, and the company has already filed comments with FCC urging the adoption of the rulemaking. A number of organizations have noted the close ties between Wheeler’s FCC and Google lobbyists.

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Republicans on a Senate committee charged with overseeing Internet policy pressed for a delay Tuesday to the government’s planned hand-off of the Internet’s domain name authority to the international community — a move some likened to the Federal Communications Commission’s divisive net neutrality rules.

The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee heard testimony from experts, stakeholders and witnesses directly involved in the Commerce Department’s plan to transition oversight of the Domain Name System (DNS) to a global multi-stakeholder community model — a move some described as necessary to ensure Internet openness.

“Over 18 years and three administrations, the U.S. government has used light-touch oversight over ICANN [Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers],” Steve DelBianco, executive director of online business association NetChoice and policy chair for ICANN’s Business Constituency told the committee.

Housed within ICANN is the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which maintains the roadmap of the Internet by assigning Internet Protocol (IP) addresses to direct Internet-connected devices to websites. The Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has overseen ICANN’s DNS operations since the broad deployment of the Internet in the 1990s.

“It is neither sustainable nor necessary for the U.S. to retain its unique role forever,” DelBianco said. “In fact, retaining this unique role increases the risk of Internet fragmentation and government overreach.”

Since the Obama administration announced its plan to transition the U.S.’s sole oversight of the Internet’s backbone to the global community in 2014, supporters — in an effort to convince Republicans — have described it as the best way to reduce Internet regulation.

“We’ve heard today that successful transition means maintaining an Internet free from government control, that and Internet tamed by government is bad for Internet users and the overall global economy,” Montana Republican Sen. Steve Daines said. “This government-involved model that we are trying to avoid sounds a bit like the FCC’s net neutrality rules.”

DelBianco said that while other governments can control the Internet within their borders, it’s up to the U.S. to lead by example in demonstrating how a neutral Internet should function.

“I don’t think that the parallel would work here because ICANN can do nothing to influence the content censorship that happens within a country’s borders,” he continued. “ICANN has nothing to do with that on purpose.”

Democrats agreed the goal of the transition and net neutrality align.

“Last year, as you know, the FCC established the Open Internet Order to protect and promote the open Internet in the United States,” Connecticut Democrat Sen. Richard Blumenthal said. “The global Internet should similarly be free and open, and to that end, the United States has a responsibility to lead by example.”

Blumenthal added it was important “to remove any perception, real or imaginary, that the U.S. government is somehow controlling the Internet.”

Though unrelated from a technical standpoint, lawmakers and witnesses agreed the transition was announced as a concession to the international community after the leak of global National Security Agency surveillance programs by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Democrats and witnesses backing the handoff said globalization made the transition inevitable, and warned any further delay in adopting the plan would signal a lack of sincerity on the part of the U.S. to the international community, and give other countries and the United Nations an excuse to try and exercise their own control over the Internet.

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said that while a transition is inevitable, extending the timeline beyond the Sept. 30 expiration of NTIA’s current contract with ICANN doesn’t mean “the world is going to rebel.”

Rubio said as recently as this May 2016, NTIA reported China issued draft measures “that would require all Internet domain names in China to be registered through government-licensed service providers that have established a domestic presence in the country and would impose additional stringent regulations on the provision of domain services.”

NTIA said the regulations “would contravene policies that have been established already at the global level by all Internet stakeholders, including the Chinese.”

“I don’t care how fast this moves or what we do, China is going to try to take over at least as much as they can, because it’s a threat to their government control of their society,” Rubio said.

Republicans have expressed similar concerns with regard to Russia and other authoritarian regimes attempting to assert control once oversight is out of U.S. government hands.

Rubio and others have sent letters to ICANN and NTIA asking for a delay in the transition to a plan approved by the international community until it undergoes stress testing.

The House Appropriations Committee is working to advance a bill stalling the transition into 2017.

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Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal said Wednesday President Barack Obama’s pick to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died Saturday, deserves a Senate hearing within 100 days of being submitted — and an up-or-down vote within 237 days.

Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., meanwhile, hasn’t budged from his vow that Senate confirmation of a replacement for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is off the table until after Obama leaves office in January, setting up a possible 11-month standoff with the White House.

Blumenthal, who joined N.Y. Sen. Charles E. Schumer and the leaders of a coalition of progressive groups Wednesday in criticizing GOP “obstructionism,” predicted public outrage would force Republicans to reconsider.

“We are not saying the president’s nominee should be rubber-stamped,” Blumenthal said. “There is clear precedent with moving ahead with the president’s nominee. Every nominee within the last 30 years has received a hearing and a vote within 100 days, the longest was Clarence Thomas, 99 days. No seat has remained vacant longer than 237 days. I think those time periods are the proper parameters for what should, on the outside and at the longest, should be the time taken.”

Blumenthal offered his timeline as he, Schumer and leaders from MoveOn.org and civil rights group Color of Change announced a petition drive aimed at convincing Republicans that stalling on the Supreme Court pick will cost them at the ballot box next fall.

Schumer, meanwhile, has become a focus of pushback on the right after critics resurfaced a 2007 video in which he urges Democrats to oppose any nominees from then-lame-duck President George W. Bush. But on Wednesday the senator expected to take over next year as the Senate  Democrats’ leader after Harry Reid retires sounded confident: “Senator McConnell will have to back off. I believe we’ll get hearings and a vote.”

Republicans have accused both Schumer and Obama of hypocrisy when it comes to the Senate’s handling of Supreme Court nominees submitted by a president of the opposing party.

Comparing 2007 to today is “apples to oranges,” Schumer said, insisting he did not suggest nine years ago that the Senate judicial approval process be halted —only that Democratic senators vote down any Bush appointee.

Schumer also posted an explanation on the Medium.com website, writing: “What I said in the speech given in 2007 is simple: Democrats, after a hearing, should entertain voting no if the nominee is out of the mainstream and tries to cover that fact up. There was no hint anywhere in the speech that there shouldn’t be hearings or a vote.”

The administration also struggled Wednesday to explain Obama’s political history.

At the White House, where the president has said he intends to submit an “indisputably” qualified nominee and expects the Senate to “do their job,” spokesman Josh Earnest on Wednesday said Obama now regrets his support, as a young senator, for an unsuccessful 2006 filibuster by Senate Democrats against the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

“What the president regrets is that Senate Democrats didn’t focus more on making an effective public case about those substantive objections,” Earnest said. “Instead, some Democrats engaged in a process of throwing sand in the gears of the confirmation process. And that’s an approach that the president regrets.”

Schumer and Blumenthal said Democrats are counting on progressives to create a grassroots movement to force Republicans to yield, but conservative activist Carrie Severino, a former clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas, now chief counsel of the Judicial Crisis Network, said the Supreme Court traditionally generates more energy in the Republican base.

“This upcoming election — people have a unique amount of frustration and anger with, really, both parties and with the way things are done in Washington. It’s a real populist movement that’s going on,” she told InsideSources. “This is exactly the kind of decision where people would like to see their voices being heard — not just more of the same.

“This isn’t even about a particular nominee at this particular point,” she said. “This is about the process, and whether this is something that should be decided by the people or by President Obama.”

Some Republicans, including Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, indicated Wednesday more willingness to hold hearings on a potential Obama pick.

Severino said holding hearings and a vote would be destructive and a disservice to whomever the president nominates if Republicans, who control 54 of the 100 seats in the Senate, are committed to waiting for the next president.

Obama, who could theoretically make a recess appointment to fill Scalia’s seat this week while the Senate is out of town, has said he wants his as-yet-unnamed nominee to go through the normal process. But Severino had some advice for Senate Republicans:

“If I were a Republican senator, I would not vote to recess again between now and January.”