OVERNIGHT TECH: House GOP wants regulatory review at FCC

THE LEDE: Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee wrote to Cass Sunstein, administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget on Wednesday urging his office to work with the Federal Communications Commission to ensure the agency's voluntary self-review of regulations meets the same standards as the administration's government-wide effort to remove burdensome federal regulations. 

As an independent agency, the FCC isn't covered by the executive order mandating the review, but the FCC agreed with a request from the House committee to conduct a full review of current regulations to identify those that could pose barriers to job creation. Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Reps. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) and Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) asked Sunstein for details on how his office is working to convince independent agencies of the importance of the reviews even though they aren't required.

One regulation that has already been identified for deletion is the Fairness Doctrine, which FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski recently agreed to strike from the rule books in response to a request from the same committee.

The letter comes the same day the committee's telecom subpanel held a hearing on process reform at the FCC, where Walden touted his draft legislation that would institute a shot clock for most commission proceedings and require cost-benefit analyses to justify any rules that could impose a burden on industry.

Walden's plan drew opposition from ranking member Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who argued it would make the commission more bureaucratic rather than accelerate the pace of business. A separate provision written by Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) that would allow three or more commissioners to meet in private has bipartisan support.

Eshoo introduced a bill of her own on Wednesday that would require wireless carriers to give consumers more information on their 4G Wireless networks. Carriers would have to publish information on guaranteed minimum data speeds, network reliability, coverage areas, pricing and network conditions at the point of sale and in all billing materials.

The FCC would be tasked with evaluating the speed and price of the 4G data at the top 10 U.S. wireless carriers to give customers a side-by-side comparison. A trade group representing the wireless association voiced concern about the additional regulation, arguing lawmakers should be focused on freeing up more spectrum for mobile broadband.

Federal transparency bill heads to House floor: The House Oversight Committee reported Chairman Darrell Issa's DATA Act at Wednesday's business meeting. The bill would create a new electronic platform to publish all government spending data and create a board to oversee its collection. The legislation was unanimously approved after Issa adopted a number of amendments and agreed to address further concerns from Democrats before sending the bill to the floor for debate. 

The bill will likely come up during Thursday's hearing in front of the House Oversight subcommittee on Technology, which will focus on improving the transparency and accountability of federal grant programs. Testifying will be Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who authored a law in 2006 with then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama that sought to accomplish the same goals as the DATA Act by creating a website (USASpending.gov) that would publish all federal spending on contracts, grants, and loans.

The site has had problems with the accuracy and timeliness of the data, due partly to bureaucratic resistance from agencies and formatting issues. However, some experts have argued that saving the site by boosting the size of the E-Government Fund would be preferable to starting from scratch, as proposed in Issa's bill, which borrows heavily from the Recovery Board that oversaw the disbursement of the stimulus dollars. 

Google won't send Page or Schmidt to antitrust hearing: Google has declined a request from the Senate Judiciary Committee's Antitrust subpanel for either CEO Larry Page or executive chairman Eric Schmidt to appear at an upcoming hearing on competition in the search market. The firm appears poised to send senior vice president for corporate development and chief legal officer David Drummond, who has been with Google since 2002.

From Google spokesman Mistique Cano: "We're in talks with the Subcommittee, and we'll send them the executive who can best answer their questions."

ICE: More domain seizures coming: A top from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement said his agency will continue seizing domains that link to pirated or counterfeit content through its "Operation In Our Sites" program through 2011 and beyond. ICE assistant deputy director Erik Barnett said the now-infamous notice informing visitors that a site has been seized and that willful copyright infringement is a federal crime has received more than 60 million hits since last June.

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