Communications & Technology

Washington, D.C. — In a new letter to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Subcommittee on Communications and Technology Chair Bob Latta (R-OH), and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chair Morgan Griffith (R-VA) requested information about the agency’s internet domain name registry agreement with Verisign, Inc. (Verisign). BACKGROUND :  The NTIA represents the United States government on the Governmental Advisory Committee of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the multi-stakeholder, not-for-profit entity that was founded in 1998 to coordinate the Internet domain name system, among other Internet management-related activities. Since 2001, Verisign has operated the .com and .net domain name registries.   Verisign manages the .com registry under two agreements—a .com Registry Agreement between ICANN and Verisign and a Cooperative Agreement between the NTIA and Verisign.  Both of these agreements are in place through November 30, 2024.  As the expiration dates of these agreements approach, some have suggested that the NTIA should reassess certain aspects of both agreements.   Under the Cooperative Agreement’s terms, it will automatically renew on November 30, 2024, unless Verisign provides written notice of non-renewal within 120 days of its expiration.   The Department of Justice has previously recommended ICANN hold a competitive bidding process for renewals of registry agreements.   The current agreement, as amended, has allowed Verisign, with ICANN’s agreement, in each of the last four years of every six-year contract period, to increase the maximum price Verisign charges for yearly registration or renewal of a .com name by up to seven percent over the maximum price it charged in the previous year.   Verisign has since instituted a price increase of the maximum amount in every year it was allowed to do so.   KEY LETTER EXCERPT :  “With both a role in advising ICANN and as a party to the Cooperative Agreement, the NTIA bears responsibility for supporting a domain name system that enables the growth of online commerce. Both individual consumers and businesses depend on responsible management of the .com system. Monopolistic elements and excessive domain name price increases stifle the ability of potential .com registrants to conduct business online.  “As such, we seek more information about the NTIA’s process in considering the renewal of both the Registry Agreement and the Cooperative Agreement.”  CLICK HERE to read the letter. 

Washington, D.C. — House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) today released a statement condemning the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) following the agency’s approval of a rule to allow the E-rate program to support Wi-Fi hotspots for use off school property.  “This expansion of E-rate funding to cover off school property violates federal law and will result in taxpayer dollars subsidizing children’s unsupervised internet access while failing to improve learning outcomes for children. Furthermore, the E-rate program is notorious for overbuilding and other wasteful spending. Rather than take steps to address the existing problems with the E-rate program, the FCC is doubling down to advance Chairwoman Rosenworcel’s pet projects. The FCC should instead be working with Congress to advance its policy goals.”  On July 31, 2023 , Chair Rodgers and Senate Commerce Committee Ranking Member Ted Cruz (R-TX) sent a letter to Chairwoman Rosenworcel expressing their opposition to her proposal to vastly expand the E-Rate program.  On September 28, 2023 , Chair Rodgers and Senator Cruz sent a letter to the then newly sworn-in FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez urging her to oppose FCC Chairwoman Rosenworcel's plan to expand the E-rate program beyond school classrooms and libraries. 

Washington D.C. — House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chair Bob Latta (R-OH) today sent National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Administrator Alan Davidson a letter demanding an explanation for the Agency’s repeated failures to respond to questions for the record (QFRs) in a timely manner. Congress has a responsibility to conduct oversight of the executive branch, and the NTIA’s failure to be responsive and transparent undermines our system of checks and balances. KEY LETTER EXCERPT: “We expect NTIA to take seriously our oversight efforts and respond to QFRs and letters promptly. After the hearing on December 5, 2023, it took you 107 days to submit your answers to the QFRs, far exceeding the 2-week deadline. “We received answers to QFRs from the December oversight hearing on the same day that we announced the May NTIA oversight hearing. It is unacceptable that in order to receive responses to QFRs from an oversight hearing, we must introduce more oversight activity.” The Chairs requested answers to the following questions:   During our May 15, 2024, oversight hearing, when questioned about the untimeliness of NTIA’s responses, you said, “I don't know all the details about why each of those took so long, and I would be happy to get back to you. I think the process of writing the QFRs were quite lengthy.” Please describe the process of drafting QFR responses. During that same hearing, you also said “We have to get them [(responses to QFRs)] all cleared through a complex internal interagency process, and that often slows us down.” Please explain each of the steps in this process. How can this interagency process be adjusted to ensure that NTIA responds promptly to the Committee’s requests? CLICK HERE to read the full letter.

Washington, D.C. — In a new letter to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Subcommittee on Communications and Technology Chair Bob Latta (R-OH), and Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chair Morgan Griffith (R-VA) requested information about the agency’s internet domain name registry agreement with Verisign, Inc. (Verisign). BACKGROUND :  The NTIA represents the United States government on the Governmental Advisory Committee of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the multi-stakeholder, not-for-profit entity that was founded in 1998 to coordinate the Internet domain name system, among other Internet management-related activities. Since 2001, Verisign has operated the .com and .net domain name registries.   Verisign manages the .com registry under two agreements—a .com Registry Agreement between ICANN and Verisign and a Cooperative Agreement between the NTIA and Verisign.  Both of these agreements are in place through November 30, 2024.  As the expiration dates of these agreements approach, some have suggested that the NTIA should reassess certain aspects of both agreements.   Under the Cooperative Agreement’s terms, it will automatically renew on November 30, 2024, unless Verisign provides written notice of non-renewal within 120 days of its expiration.   The Department of Justice has previously recommended ICANN hold a competitive bidding process for renewals of registry agreements.   The current agreement, as amended, has allowed Verisign, with ICANN’s agreement, in each of the last four years of every six-year contract period, to increase the maximum price Verisign charges for yearly registration or renewal of a .com name by up to seven percent over the maximum price it charged in the previous year.   Verisign has since instituted a price increase of the maximum amount in every year it was allowed to do so.   KEY LETTER EXCERPT :  “With both a role in advising ICANN and as a party to the Cooperative Agreement, the NTIA bears responsibility for supporting a domain name system that enables the growth of online commerce. Both individual consumers and businesses depend on responsible management of the .com system. Monopolistic elements and excessive domain name price increases stifle the ability of potential .com registrants to conduct business online.  “As such, we seek more information about the NTIA’s process in considering the renewal of both the Registry Agreement and the Cooperative Agreement.”  CLICK HERE to read the letter. 

Washington D.C. — House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chair Bob Latta (R-OH) today sent National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Administrator Alan Davidson a letter demanding an explanation for the Agency’s repeated failures to respond to questions for the record (QFRs) in a timely manner. Congress has a responsibility to conduct oversight of the executive branch, and the NTIA’s failure to be responsive and transparent undermines our system of checks and balances. KEY LETTER EXCERPT: “We expect NTIA to take seriously our oversight efforts and respond to QFRs and letters promptly. After the hearing on December 5, 2023, it took you 107 days to submit your answers to the QFRs, far exceeding the 2-week deadline. “We received answers to QFRs from the December oversight hearing on the same day that we announced the May NTIA oversight hearing. It is unacceptable that in order to receive responses to QFRs from an oversight hearing, we must introduce more oversight activity.” The Chairs requested answers to the following questions:   During our May 15, 2024, oversight hearing, when questioned about the untimeliness of NTIA’s responses, you said, “I don't know all the details about why each of those took so long, and I would be happy to get back to you. I think the process of writing the QFRs were quite lengthy.” Please describe the process of drafting QFR responses. During that same hearing, you also said “We have to get them [(responses to QFRs)] all cleared through a complex internal interagency process, and that often slows us down.” Please explain each of the steps in this process. How can this interagency process be adjusted to ensure that NTIA responds promptly to the Committee’s requests? CLICK HERE to read the full letter.

Washington, D.C. — House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and Oversight and Acoountability Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) sent letters to eight federal agencies today following the recent Supreme Court decision on Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo , in which the court overruled Chevron deference. Science, Space, and Technology Committee Chair Frank Lucas (R-OK) and House Agriculture Committee Chair GT Thompson (R-PA) joined Chairs Rodgers and Comer on an additional letter sent to the Environmental Protection Agency. KEY LETTER EXCERPT: “We write to call to your attention Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, a recent Supreme Court decision that precludes courts from deferring to agency interpretations when the statutes are ambiguous. In its decision, the Court explicitly overruled Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984), which required deference to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes. By allowing such deference, the Court in Chevron enabled the ‘Administrative State’ to usurp the legislative authority that the Constitution grants exclusively to Congress in Article I. The Chevron decision led to broader, more costly and more invasive agency regulation of Americans’ lives, liberty, and property.   “Perhaps no administration has gone as far as President Biden’s in issuing sweeping Executive edicts based on questionable assertions of agency authority. The Biden administration has promulgated far more major rules, imposing vast costs and paperwork burdens, than either its most recent predecessors. Many of these rules...have been based on overreaching interpretations of statutes enacted by Congress years ago, before the issues now regulated were even imagined.   “The expansive Chevron deference has undermined our system of government, creating an unaccountable Administrative State. Thankfully, the Court has now corrected this pattern, reaffirming that ‘[i]t is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.’ Given the Biden administration’s record of agency overreach, we are compelled to underscore the implications of Loper Bright and remind you of the limitations it has set on your authority.”   CLICK HERE to read the letter to the Environmental Protection Agency. CLICK HERE to read the letter to the Federal Communications Commission.  CLICK HERE to read the letter to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.  CLICK HERE to read the letter to the Federal Trade Commission.  CLICK HERE to read the letter to Department of Commerce.   CLICK HERE to read the letter to the Department of Energy.  CLICK HERE to read the letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.  CLICK HERE to read the letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.  CLICK HERE to read the letter to the National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration.