"We've got to iron out the H-1B situation so it doesn't push businesses to hire people overseas," Hatch said.

Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), the ranking member of the House subcommittee on cybersecurity, told Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials in an oversight hearing on Thursday that she was concerned over the string of departures of senior cybersecurity officials in the past six months.

The hacker activist group Anonymous said it plans to target the oil-and-gas sector in a June 20 operation.

“It has been a long time coming,” the collective said of the event, Operation Petrol, in a video it released this week on its YouTube page.

The group said it would hone in on the United States, Canada, England, Israel, China, Italy, France, Germany, Russia and the governments of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar.

Three Republicans joined all 10 panel Democrats to reject the amendment.

House Democrats urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Thursday to reject the advice of a group of Republicans on the upcoming auction of broadcast TV licenses. 

The Energy and Commerce Committee Democrats accused House Republicans of seeking to "advance a one-sided re-interpretation of the goals and meaning" of the law authorizing the auction and trying to "spin the legislative history in a way that inaccurately reflects the intent of Congress."

The letter was signed by Democratic Reps. Henry Waxman (Calif.), Anna Eshoo (Calif.), Edward Markey (Mass.), Diana DeGette (Colo.), Mike Doyle (Pa.), and Doris Matsui (Calif.).

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) promised on Wednesday to lower state income taxes if Congress approves online sales tax legislation.

In a letter to the state's members of Congress, Walker said the Wisconsin Department of Revenue estimates that the online sales tax bill would bring in $95 million in additional state revenue every year.

"I want to make clear, should federal Marketplace legislation become law, my intention would be for any resulting additional revenue be used to provide individual income tax relief for Wisconsin’s taxpayers," Walker wrote.

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday postponed action on visas for high-skilled workers, an issue that has split members of the Gang of Eight.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) have yet to reach agreement on a controversial package of amendments covering H-1B visas for high-skilled workers.

Google unveiled a a major redesign of its Maps product at the company's annual developers conference, The New York Times reports. Read more...

THE LEDE: AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson stoked fear among open Internet advocates on Wednesday when he told investors that he expects content owners to soon begin paying to subsidize smartphone traffic to their websites and services.

"There will be players in the ecosystem who are motivated to draw more traffic to their particular content or website. Will there be models emerge where they are willing to defray some of the consumer's in-user charges by paying it themselves, either by advertising or by monetization of data?" he asked during a conference hosted by J.P. Morgan Chase. "I think the answer to that is yes."

He said the content and application developers, not AT&T, will drive the change in the marketplace.

The comments came just days after The Wall Street Journal reported that ESPN has had talks with at least one major wireless carrier to pay to exempt its content from monthly data caps.

Consumer advocacy groups are worried that such business arrangements would violate the principle of net neutrality. They argue that all Internet traffic should be treated equally and that major corporations should not be able to pay for preferential treatment.

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