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House Panel Approves Legislation to Overhaul FCC: The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved a bill Tuesday that would overhaul how the Federal Communications Commission does business and make it more difficult for the agency to issue new regulations. CQ's Anne Kim reports the panel passed the bill (HR 3309) in a largely party-line vote, sending it to the House floor for consideration. The bill would require the FCC to first identify a regulatory barrier or market failure before issuing new regulations, and then perform a cost-benefit analysis of the new rules. The bill would also codify the informal shot clock used by the agency for merger reviews and limit the types of conditions the FCC can place on such transactions. Republicans say the changes would bring more transparency and accountability to the FCC, while panel Democrats criticized the legislation for hamstringing the agency. Even if the House passes the bill, a spokesman with the Senate Commerce Committee said that panel has no plans to take up the issue. Telecom Subpanel Talks Cybersecurity: The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology will hold a hearing Wednesday morning on the cybersecurity threat to the nation's communications networks, featuring representatives from AT&T, Comcast, Century Link and MetroPCS. The various committees of jurisdiction in the House have been debating cybersecurity legislation in recent months, with an eye toward bringing the various bills to the floor later this year to be combined. Unlike the Senate, the House has been mostly resistant to the idea of new security mandates by the Department of Homeland Security.

Instead, the lower chamber has favored adding cybersecurity to the regulatory portfolios of agencies such as the FCC that oversee various parts of the nation's critical infrastructure. At a hearing last month on the same topic, cybersecurity experts told the panel that the major telecom firms are among the few sectors of the economy that already moved to secure their systems, making new regulations superfluous. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski called for some voluntary measures from telecom providers in a speech last month, such as having Internet service providers notify customers when their devices have been hijacked by botnets or their traffic has been re-routed.

FCC: Cellphone Jamming Is Illegal: The FCC issued a warning Tuesday that using, advertising or selling cellphone jammers and other devices that block GPS, WiFi, or wireless services is illegal and likely to draw aggressive action from the agency's Enforcement Bureau. The FCC announced enforcement actions against 220 online retailers for selling the devices last year. The fines for using the devices can total more than $112,000 for a single violation. Firms Blast Verizon Deal With Cable Firms: Ten prominent telecom firms and interest groups including Sprint, T-Mobile USA and DIRECTV wrote to the FCC (PDF) on Tuesday, asking the agency to stop its informal 180-day shot clock on its review of Verizon's purchase of spectrum from a group of cable companies. The deal includes a number of side agreements under which Verizon and the cable firms would cross-promote each others' products, raising concerns of collusion and reduced competition for pay-TV providers. Verizon and the cable companies claim the agreements are beyond the scope of the FCC's review, and have noted the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division is already scrutinizing the arrangement.

But critics point out that extensive portions of the documents submitted to the FCC outlining the agreements have been redacted, ostensibly to protect the confidentiality of the firms' pricing, compensation and marketing strategies. The critics argue that without access to the full documents, they cannot possibly evaluate the merits of the transaction. Verizon and the cable companies have argued that only FCC staff need to evaluate the documents, and they will have access through DOJ.

Quotable: "In combination with the proposed spectrum transaction, the commercial agreements will significantly enhance the applicants’ competitive position in the broadband, wireless and video markets. Without the ability to review those agreements in full, interested parties would be unfairly deprived of the information they need to produce a complete portrait of the impact this transaction will have on the public interest and the commission would be unnecessarily deprived of that input into its public interest determination." -- Telecom letter to the FCC.