Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies
Senate Appropriations Committee
Monday, September 14, 2009
2 p.m., Dirksen 138
Witnesses: Panel 1:
John Bucher, Ph.D.
Associate Director
National Toxicology Program
National Institutes of Health
Research Triangle Park, North Carolina
Panel 2:
Devra Lee Davis, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Professor, Department of Epidemiology
Graduate School of Public Health
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Siegal Sadetzki, M.D.
Director, Cancer and Radiation Epidemiology Unit
Gertner Institute
Chaim Sheba Medical Center
Tel-Hashomer, Israel
Dariusz Leszczynski, Ph.D., D.Sc.
Research Professor, Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority
Adjunct Professor
University of Helsinki
Helsinki, Finland
The House Communications Subcommittee confirms that it will hold an Federal Communications Commission oversight hearing September 17 at 10 a.m. All five commissioners have been invited and are expected to be in attendance.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski posted his first video blog on the FCC's Blogband page, outlining his ambitions for the Commission to start using new media tools to communication with the public. In addition, the FCC has launched on the crowd-sourcing platform, Ideascale. Crowd-sourcing allows the online community to discuss, evaluate and rank ideas. The platform will be especially useful as the Commission develops a National Broadband Plan, which will provide a strategy for reaching all Americans with robust broadband. The FCC will also be launching on social media sites Facebook and YouTube. Finally, the FCC is also launching a central repository of RSS data feeds from the agency. Though the FCC launched a general RSS feed in August, the addition of 48 feeds provides more robust access. As part of its commitment to opening government data and furthering transparency, the FCC will continue to grow the catalog of data feeds
[Commentary] There's a number of reasons to be concerned about the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's Broadband Technology Opportunities Program, but perhaps the biggest is the vetting process for the volunteer reviewers of BTOP applications. Many have been critical of using an all-volunteer army from the get go as it seems wide open to attempts to game the system, plus it can be a challenge to make sure that not only do the volunteers not have conflicts of interest, but also that they're competent. It also raises questions: How many hours in how short of a window of time are volunteers expected to invest in this process? What support will reviewers have during odd hours like nights and weekends, which is likely when many of the will be working through these applications?
Government Technology raises an interesting question about the broadband stimulus initiative: Should anyone care if big broadband providers don't like the rules?
Early on, there was a lot of talk about major carriers taking a pass on broadband stimulus. Last month, Calix CEO Carl Russo argued that a lot of likely candidates who passed on the first funding round will pounce on the second and third, lobbying for changes to the rules that kept them on the sidelines thus far. "Everybody's going to watch what happens in this round, and then you're going to see a whole lot of gaming in the second round," Russo said. "People are going to watch who won awards, why they won, why they didn't, and you're going to see reinterpretations of the rules. I don't know that the rules will change, but you'll see a lot of lobbying. There's a lot of people that may not choose to be in round one and are public about, 'Well, this is not for us;' if you think for a moment that they're not going to be back in right after round one, you're dreaming. This is not going be three tranches of the same rule set done the same way."
[Commentary] Federal Communications Commission Chairman Genachowski met with Microsoft's Steve Ballmer, John Chambers of Cisco, Stephen Hemsley of UnitedHealth Group, and Jeffrey Immelt of GE. The topic: how the national broadband plan being developed by the FCC can provide benefits throughout America in all the critical areas of our economy, such as healthcare, energy and education. Ballmer emphasized that our economic growth can no longer be fueled by debt and that we must return to the traditional stimuli for economic growth: innovation and productivity. Today, broadband is foundational for driving innovation and productivity across all economic sectors, including energy, education, healthcare, and e-government.
[Commentary] From what Settles has seen and read about so far, broadband stimulus applications fit into three loosely defined categories: The dreamers, the hopefuls and the planners. The dreamers threw proposals out there that have no chance of being funded but figure there's always the wild possibility that lightning might strike and they'll get lucky. The company that put in a proposal for $1.4 billion for sustainable adoption and computer centers when only $450 million has been set aside for the whole country to share. The hopefuls got to the party late, April or May, or they're from urban and other areas that were clearly short-changed by the NOFA rules' wording and late arrival. Philly's a good example of the latter. The hopefuls have viable broadband needs, but the time worked against them preparing a great proposal and the rules backed them into a corner. However, they submitted anyway, on a hope and a prayer. Those in the planners category were well on their way to having all the details in place before the stimulus even came out. They probably have the strongest position among the 2,200. The hopefuls are in the 50/50 position. Whether they win a grant or not depends a lot on how strong their political mojo is and how many proposals have come from their respective states.
Colorado will use a website gathering public input to help map where in the state high-speed Internet is available and at what speeds. The www.connectcolorado.org website, a joint effort of the state government and the nonprofit group Connected Nation, has launched to help with the broadband mapping project the state first started organizing two years ago. The website is meant to help verify speeds and augment information about broadband access that the state once hoped to get from telecom and cable TV companies. Colorado wants the information to eventually determine how to get broadband access — and the economic benefits that flow from it — to areas that lack high-speed Internet. Michael Locatis, chief information officer of Colorado, in a written statement urged state residents to log in because wiring more of the state with broadband is a financial boost. Connected Nation features players from some of telecom's biggest companies, lobbying groups and industry associations on its board of directors, and it has raised money from the nonprofit arms of AT&T and power utilities. That has led to questions about the nonprofit's mapping assistance because it's collecting data about broadband access that telecom providers already should know.
The Free State Foundation on Thursday hosted conference to celebrate its new book, "New Directions in Communications Policy," with contributions by members of the think tanks academic board. Speaking at the event, John Mayo, a professor of economics, business and public policy at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business and contributing author, said that the focus on broadband advancement is a shift that has happened before. "From 1996 to 2008, there was a focus of deploying broadband," he said. "Now the main focus is on the deploying and adoption of broadband." However, in the collection of essays, author Christopher Yoo, professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and professor of communication at the Annenberg School for Communications, said that there was much to be learned from previous Internet advances.
Despite widespread speculation that Apple will open the iPhone exclusive arrangement with AT&T to include Verizon Wireless after 2010, one analyst firm is predicting AT&T's exclusive deal as the wireless carrier will be extended beyond then. In a report, iSuppli Corp. said that its main reason for expecting an exclusive extension is based on its analysis of a growth in usage of a faster wireless standard at AT&T known as High Speed Packet Access (HSPA). The global growth in HSPA usage will far outstrip growth in usage of EVDO (Evolution Data Optimized), a different standard used by Verizon, iSuppli said.
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