Taxes
Net Tax Plan May Have Majority
     Supporters of a business-crafted Internet tax proposal were confident that a majority of members on the Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce will support the plan, although that will not be enough to formally send that plan to Congress. The plan, drafted by the six business representatives on the commission, calls for a five-year extension of the current Internet tax moratorium that would include a temporary ban in sales taxes on digital goods and their tangible counterparts such as books and music. The commission will meet in Dallas on Monday and Tuesday to vote on the report it will send to Congress by an April deadline.

Taxes
Lawmakers Urge Local Action On Internet Taxes
     Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agreed that Congress should back off attempts to permanently ban sales taxes on the Internet and leave the issue to the states and localities that hold the true authority over the issue. "I believe few issues are more important than protecting the local tax base," said Rep. Christopher Cox, R-CA, at a National League of Cities (NLC) conference. "Policymakers in Washington would be wise to tread lightly." Cox's Democratic colleague on the House Commerce Committee, Edward Markey of Massachusetts, agreed, adding that making the Internet a sales-tax-free zone would be akin to creating a "cyberspace Cayman Islands."

Telecom
Group Seeks To Scrap Federal Phone Tax
     A bipartisan group in Congress began a push this week to repeal a 100-year-old luxury tax on telephones, a move generally supported by the Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce as a way to level the playing field among technologies providing Internet access. House Ways and Means Committee members Reps. Rob Portman, R-OH, and Robert Matsui, D-CA, introduced the legislation with 16 Republican and Democratic colleagues to abolish the 3 percent excise tax on telephone calls. That tax generates annually about $6 billion for the federal government. Next week, a companion bill is expected to be introduced in the Senate, possibly by Finance Committee Chairman William Roth, R-DE, and ranking Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York.

Labor
New Worker Bill Has Bipartisan Support
     A bipartisan group of House lawmakers unveiled legislation aimed at addressing the high-tech industry's skilled worker shortage that has the support of industry and House leaders in both parties. The bill, sponsored by Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier, R-CA, appears to have the widest bipartisan support of any of the bills in play that would address the high-tech worker shortage issue. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-CA, is the chief co-sponsor of the bill, which is backed by members of the moderate New Democrat Coalition, House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-MO, and Republican leaders such as Tom Davis, R-VA, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Meanwhile, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-TX, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee's immigration panel, said he is may hold a hearing on the H1-B issue the week of March 27.

Export
EAA Lite: House Could Break Legislation Into Smaller Bills
     While the fate of a Senate bill that would reauthorize the Export Administration Act remains in limbo, House lawmakers are weighing the possibility of breaking out individual items from the bill into a separate, narrower measure. Among the provisions that the House International Relations Committee is considering including in a smaller bill affecting export controls is stiffening the penalties for export regulation violations and reducing the amount of time Congress has to review changes to some computer export controls.

Trade
Dreier: Keep Fighting, ITI
     House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier, R-CA, urged the Information Technology Industry Council to keep up its battle cry on the vote for permanent normal trade relations with China. "They need to continue to get their employees to contact members of Congress to let them know their livelihood depends on the issue," Dreier said he told members of ITI. "We're not giving them (China) a gift," Bond said.

Cyberterrorism
Resolution Declares Cyberterrorism A Threat
     Rep. Jim Saxton, R-NJ, has introduced a measure that would declare cyberterrorism as an emerging threat to U.S. national security and calls on federal policymakers to develop a national strategy aimed at ensuring the government and industry work together to address the issue.bThe non-binding resolution also calls for revisions to the current legal framework for prosecuting computer hackers and cyberterrorists and creation of an interagency study on cyberterrorism by the Defense and Commerce Departments, FBI, CIA and National Security Agency.

Privacy
Privacy Legislation An Inevitability, Reps Say
     Consumer' intense interest in data privacy bolsters the likelihood that Congress will pass strong privacy rules within the next three years, said Rep. Joe Barton, R-TX, and Rep. Ed Markey, D-MA, before the Consumer Federation of America conference. "Over time, the Congress does what the people want," said Barton, who noted that data privacy was one of the top concerns of women voters in his district. "I am absolutely convinced that within a very short period of time, we will have very strong privacy laws, not only in financial privacy, but in medical privacy." Markey supported Barton's point about consumer concern in a luncheon address that also tapped sentiment against telecommunications and software monopolies and urged campaign finance reform. They are co-founders of the Privacy Caucus, and Barton is a co-sponsor of Markey's Consumers Right to Financial Privacy Act, H.R. 3320.

Privacy
Lawmakers Push Privacy Commission
     Calling their approach "thoughtful," Reps. Asa Hutchinson, R-AR, and Jim Moran, D-VA, announced they would introduce a bill to create a Privacy Protection Commission that would study privacy issues for 18 months and then recommend legislation to Congress.

Education
House Dem Re-ignites Push For Ed Tech Measures
     House New Democrat John Larson, D-CT, re-ignited his push for stronger technology training for teachers and the creation of a new Technology Corps of volunteers to train students how to teach their peers and others how to use the Internet and other high-tech tools. Larson's bill, H.R. 2933, would allow future teachers to qualify for the federal Work Study program — which provides college funds for campus work — if they tutor current teachers in technology skills. The bill also would call on the National Science Foundation to study how targeted tax incentives could encourage corporations to allow their employees to become technology mentors for classroom teachers.

Education
Tech Funding Is A Must For Public Ed
     The Education Department's top technology policymaker said that Capitol Hill proposals to lump education funding into block grants, and eliminating targeted technology programs in the process, would be "disastrous" to department initiatives to improve teacher and student access to new technology. "The question is 'do these programs need to continue?'," Office of Technology Director Linda Roberts said. "The answer is 'absolutely yes.' What will not work is a general grant that does not focus the funds."

Digital Divide
Study Finds Web Content Lacking
     While falling computer and Internet access costs are lowering the barrier between those who have access to new technology and those who do not, online content still is not easily searchable or relevant to low-income and underserved populations, according to a study released by The Children's Partnership.

Contributions
Dems Benefit From Tech Donations
     Democratic candidates appear to have had the edge in high-tech company employee, political action committee and soft money campaign contributions during 1999, according to a recent analysis conducted by the Center for Responsive Politics. The top 10 computer-industry donors gave Democratic candidates and their campaign committees $2.15 million, while Republicans received $1.33 million.

Campaigns
Hillary To Visit Valley
     First Lady Hillary Clinton will take a break from campaigning in upstate New York to visit Silicon Valley at the end of March. Clinton, who is a Democratic candidate for the Senate in New York, is scheduled to visit Silicon Valley companies on a March 29 trip organized by TechNet, Silicon Valley's bipartisan lobbying group. TechNet does not expect to host a fund-raiser. However, a member company may be hosting one separate from the lobbying group, a TechNet spokeswoman said.

- by Sharon McLoone