But the largest and most contentious portion of the bill deals with visas, a controversial topic with the election looming and unemployment still hovering around 8 percent. The bill would create a new visa for foreign graduate students studying STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) fields at U.S. universities, which would make them automatically eligible for a green card once they graduate and get a job. The bill would also establish a new entrepreneur's visa aimed at immigrants looking to start a business in the U.S., and eliminate per-country caps on employment-based visas. Those proposals are likely to draw fire from Republicans and some Democrats, but Moran said he spoke to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney about the package and said Romney would be supportive.
Tech companies have consistently maintained that the shortage of qualified U.S. engineers limits their ability to hire and innovate, and have criticized the government for not allowing foreign graduates to employ their STEM training in the U.S. But any proposal to expand immigration is a tough sell in the current political climate, especially with some reports claiming half of recent U.S. college graduates are sitting at home unemployed. Critics of expanding immigration also respond to the tech industry's complaints of personnel shortages by pointing out that half of the STEM graduate students at U.S. universities are still American. They argue Silicon Valley is looking for a discount on foreign engineering talent, rather than paying the price to compete with Wall St. and startups for homegrown scientists and engineers.
FCC Holds Channel Sharing Workshop: CQ's Ambreen Ali reports the Federal Communications Commission held a workshop on Tuesday to discuss voluntary channel sharing, the first part of its plan to implement the spectrum incentive auctions recently authorized by Congress. The auctions are designed to free up spectrum for use by wireless companies, but first the FCC must convince broadcasters to part with their airwaves. The broadcasters lobbied fiercely to ensure the auctions were completely voluntary, which means struggling stations must choose to relinquish their spectrum by submitting bids to the FCC to go out of business or enter into a channel sharing agreement. Those stations would then be entitled to a portion of the proceeds from the sale of their spectrum. But there is concern that the incentives are slanted in such a way that rural stations and those aimed at minorities and other under-served markets will be most likely to take the money and scale back their offerings. In addition, channel-sharing agreements could result in reduced broadcast quality and could eliminate the availability of simulcasts in languages like Spanish. Facebook Friends the Business Lobby: Roll Call's Janie Lorber and Kate Ackley report Facebook is partnering with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Businesses to give away $10 million in free advertising. The Chamber drew the ire of the tech community by throwing its weight behind a pair of online piracy bills that were shelved after massive online protests earlier this year. The partnership with Facebook is an opportunity for the Chamber to begin soothing the hurt created by the SOPA/PIPA mess.As for Facebook, the company's stock has dropped more than 15 percent from its opening price and the most-anticipated IPO in recent years has been deemed a failure by the market, with all sides rushing to point fingers. While the company's original shareholders were able to cash out while raising enough capital to bankroll future projects, investors looking to get rich quickly were left counting their losses after a tumultuous first three days of trading. Questions about the efficacy of Facebook advertisements also emerged after GM, one of the country's largest advertisers, pulled its $10 million Facebook campaign in the days before the offering. Advertising accounted for 85 percent of Facebook's $3.7 billion in revenue last year, and investors are watching closely to see if the firm can expand its income enough to validate a market cap of roughly $100 billion.
Lieberman: Al Qaeda Video Shows Need for Cybersecurity Standards: Senate Homeland Security Chairman Joe Lieberman released an al Qaeda video on Tuesday that calls for the organization's covert operatives to wage "electronic jihad" on the U.S. and its allies. Lieberman said the video explicitly calls for cyberattacks against the U.S. government and the nation's critical infrastructure, and he called it the clearest indication that terrorists plan on using the Web to target the U.S. Lieberman, I-Conn., called on Congress to pass his comprehensive cybersecurity bill (S 2105), which would establish baseline security regulations for critical infrastructure providers under the oversight of the Department of Homeland Security. The White House has endorsed the bill and the need for cybersecurity regulations, but Republicans, industry and privacy advocates have rallied in opposition to the legislation.