The departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and of Homeland Security (DHS) must coordinate and help hospitals battle cyberattacks, said Rep. Krysten Sinema, D-Ariz., in a letter sent Friday to both agencies (http://1.usa.gov/1rdD76b). “The combination of comparably lower spending on cybersecurity than other industries and the extremely valuable data possessed by hospitals and healthcare networks makes the healthcare industry a more attractive target for cybercrime,” Sinema said. She requested information on how DHS and HHS create and inform hospitals of cybersecurity best practices, how they ensure safe transmission of data between hospitals, and what resources hospitals can use to improve their cybersecurity. “As we increasingly rely on digital health innovations to control rising healthcare costs, it is important that DHS and HHS support hospitals’ and healthcare networks’ efforts to improve their cybersecurity systems,” Sinema said. DHS and HHS did respond to requests for comment.

A recent GAO request on low-power TV could give the next Congress “the basis it will need to craft legislation to help LPTV and TV translators deal with the impacts … from the auction and subsequent displacements and repacking,” said Mike Gravino, head of the LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition, in a widely circulated Monday email. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, and House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., requested the study, aimed at getting a sense of the media landscape and how the FCC’s incentive auction would affect LPTVs and translators (CD Oct 2 p20). Gravino called the request “excellent” and recanted from his previous strong criticism of a draft Barton bill, which aimed to protect LPTV interests in the upcoming auction. “I will be the first here to make a public apology for calling out the House Subcommittee members when the bill this summer was being proposed,” Gravino said. “While the bill sucked big time, and as written could have totally given up the last defense LPTV had in the FCC process, the resulting firestorm around it has definitely changed the dynamic.” Barton “decided to postpone” any official introduction of his draft LPTV and Translator Preservation Act “for now,” his spokesman told us Monday, citing “the end of Congress looming and little to no action on telecom issues expected during the lame duck.” But Barton and Eshoo thought “the issue was important enough to warrant some sort of action,” hence the GAO request, the Barton spokesman said. Gravino said there has “been a lot of activity behind the scenes in the Senate about this issue” but thinks “the House is better set up to make the GAO request.”

NetCompetition Chairman Scott Cleland said a net neutrality proposal from House Commerce Committee ranking member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., is illegal. Waxman outlined his proposal -- calling for hybrid net neutrality authority using Communications Act Section 706 and Title II -- in a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler Friday, provoking immediate outcry from NCTA and USTelecom (CD Oct 6 p2), both of which belong to NetCompetition. The Waxman proposal is “a call for FCC double-regulation of the Internet using both Title I and Title II,” not a compromise, Cleland said in a Sunday blog post (http://bit.ly/1xhwOE7). He said the “fatally-flawed tent-pole assumption” revolves around the idea “that the FCC can somehow deem previously mutually-exclusive services under precedent and the law to now be inclusive” simultaneously. “Congress did not grant the FCC statutory authority to unilaterally combine heretofore mutually-exclusive, congressionally-defined, regulatory classifications, let alone for the purpose of imposing more restrictive regulation than Congress imposed in either Title I or Title II authority, or for the purposes of regulating competitive providers in the 21st century more restrictively than Congress and the FCC regulated the telephone monopoly in the 20th century,” Cleland said. Free State Foundation President Randolph May also criticized the proposal. “The notion of adopting new net neutrality rules is problematic enough if the Commission relies only on Section 706,” he told us. “But were it to cook up some ‘hybrid’ approach a la Waxman, the result would be even worse in light of the dubious assumptions incorporated into Waxman’s recipe. The only good thing about the proposal from my perspective is that, if it were adopted, it would most likely be rejected by the courts. Maybe three strikes would convince the Commission that it’s time to await further direction from Congress."

Spectrum management should be among the priorities of federal government, wrapped into how it conducts acquisition, a former federal official told Congress in a report released Thursday. The Senate Homeland Security Investigations Subcommittee released a long report containing views from many people on the best ways to overhaul defense acquisitions. The Joint Capabilities and Integration Development System “process needs to be streamlined and better integrated with acquisition,” Paul Kaminski, chairman of Technovation, said in the committee staff report (http://1.usa.gov/1sRwqxR). “A robust Development Planning process ... would produce a better outcome. We need a more robust process to better address the issues associated with integrating spectrum management, electronic warfare, cyber offense and defense, and C4ISR [command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] across our forces and across our various acquisition programs.” Technovation is a consulting firm focused on technology applications for aerospace and defense. Kaminski was undersecretary of defense for acquisition and technology during the Clinton administration.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., still sees a possible net neutrality letter to the FCC as “in the works” but not imminent, a Democratic aide told us Friday. Lofgren is considering advocating for Communications Act Title II reclassification of broadband but limited only to the issue of net neutrality, as an aide first told us last month (CD Sept 12 p9).

Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and John McCain, R-Ariz., pressured NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in a letter dated Wednesday to act against sports blackouts. “We ask that you capitalize on the FCC’s vote this week and voluntarily rescind your requirement that local television stations blackout games that fail to sell-out,” they said (http://1.usa.gov/1vyad4N), referring to FCC action Tuesday against sports blackouts. “The NFL has received substantial benefits from the public in the form of antitrust exemptions, a specialized tax status, and direct taxpayer dollars that subsidize football arenas and stadiums. ... But, the provision of these substantial public benefits requires that the NFL meet basic obligations to the American public and loyal fans, and this includes abandoning rules that punish those same fans.” They've introduced legislation targeting sports blackouts and the NFL’s antitrust exemption and threatened that Congress may be forced to act if the NFL does not. The NFL declined comment on the letter, citing how recently it was sent.

Congress needs to give “serious consideration” to the Respecting Senior Performers as Essential Cultural Treasures (RESPECT) Act after a U.S. District Court in Los Angeles ruling against SiriusXM for pre-1972 public performance royalties (CD Sept 24 p7), said Seth Cooper of Free State Foundation (FSF) in a paper released Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1nLtJMs). Because legal questions on the protection of pre-1972 public performance royalties remain unresolved in other states, HR-4772 “could provide certainty,” he said. Although the RESPECT Act doesn’t pre-empt state law protections for such recordings, the bill provides “safe harbor for digital music services providers from state copyright infringement lawsuits,” said Cooper. The ruling also highlighted copyright law’s “unfair favoritism” toward terrestrial radio, he said. That terrestrial broadcasters aren’t obligated to pay public performance royalties for any sound recordings “infringes on the rights of copyright holders” and is “unfair to digital and satellite radio services,” said Cooper. “Free market copyright policy should include an eventual transition, even if piecemeal, toward greater reliance on contract bargaining and less on government rate-setting,” he said. “It’s apparent that FSF has very little understanding of the unparalleled free promotional value that broadcast radio provides artists and record labels,” said an NAB spokesman. Many cases are pending on pre-1972 public performance royalties for digital broadcasters, but “none of those lawsuits were brought against over-the-air radio stations,” said NAB. “There’s no reason to believe the outcome of these cases will impact” terrestrial broadcasters, it said. The Local Radio Freedom Act (H. Con. Res. 16), which would prohibit any new taxes or royalties on broadcast radio stations, has 232 co-sponsors (http://1.usa.gov/1rM1GfK). HR-4772 has 14 co-sponsors (http://1.usa.gov/10lsRDj).

Rep. Tony Cardenas, D-Calif., has continued to weigh potential problems with Comcast’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable. He met with members of the Writers Guild of America, West for an informal briefing at the Capitol Tuesday that included Alfredo Barrios, known for his work on the TV show Burn Notice, and Patric Verrone, a past guild president. Cardenas is concerned about “the potential for both vertical and horizontal integration issues surrounding the potential Comcast-Time Warner merger, and how those could lead to both media consolidation and a shortage of independent voices in front of the camera, along with fewer job and growth opportunities in production and other trades,” his spokesman told us. The spokesman said the briefing’s key takeaway was the Guild’s objection to Comcast/TWC due to creation of “more homogenized programs, with far fewer opportunities for diverse, unique voices to be heard.” Cardenas signed a letter to the heads of Comcast and Time Warner Cable this summer expressing concerns. In September, Cardenas and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus met with independent producers to discuss the transaction. Comcast has defended the proposed acquisition as ultimately good for consumers.

FCC staffers are “actively reviewing” the meaning of the term “not-for-profit hospital,” which appears in the Communications Act, Chairman Tom Wheeler told multiple lawmakers in a Sept. 19 letter (http://bit.ly/1E18CdH). Agency officials will “seek to reach a determination in as expeditious a manner as possible,” he said. The meaning of the term came into question as the FCC seeks to implement its Healthcare Connect Fund.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., is continuing to work with Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., to deal with “political tantrums” over the House-passed Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) and the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA), he said during an event Wednesday. Experts consider CISPA (HR-624) and CISA (S-2588) relatively analogous, though CISA’s proponents say it has better privacy protections than CISPA. Critics of CISA argue those privacy protections are insufficient (CD July 30 p6). “Tantrums” over CISA threaten to result in “holds and other things” in the Senate that could kill the bill’s prospects for the rest of the 113th Congress, Rogers said during a Washington Post event. Rogers said he fears if the Senate isn’t able to pass CISA during the post-election lame-duck session, the legislative process “all starts over.” Rogers and Senate Intelligence Vice Chairman Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., are retiring at the end of the 113th Congress, adding to future problems for cybersecurity information sharing legislation, Rogers said. There aren’t any holds on CISA because the bill “hasn’t been hotlined,” a committee aide told us. Senate Intelligence hopes to address all potential issues before it’s hotlined “to allow it to be passed,” the aide said.