Telecom
Debate Still Brewing Over FCC Broadband Proposal
     The FCC's Friday morning meeting would be a routine affair if not for the high-stakes, behind-the-scenes drama brewing over a high-speed Internet proposal. Agency Chairman Kevin Martin, a Republican, is seeking to add a deregulatory item benefiting telephone providers of broadband access to the meeting's agenda. It was not part of the official meeting agenda circulated by the agency. The item's impact on the $6.5 billion universal service fund, which subsidizes telephone service in low-income and rural areas, appears to be a major sticking point for the Democratic commissioners, sources said. The meeting was delayed from Thursday to Friday to give the four commissioners, evenly split along party lines, more time to cut a deal. Even if the regulators punt on the item Friday, they could address it "on circulation," which means they could debate it among themselves and not as part of a public meeting.

On The Hill
Striking A Deal On Data Protection Will Not Be Easy
     The Senate Commerce Committee quickly approved an expansive data protection bill last month, but participants in the process expect a fractious debate this fall as they hammer out agreements on the best methods for protecting consumers against identity theft. During committee debate, Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, pledged to work with other relevant panels to speed along the legislation. But drafts of the proposed measure are riddled with so many sticking points that negotiations could extend well into the year. Before the debate on passage of the measure, S. 1408, there were 38 substantive amendments, many of which were dropped before a "manager's amendment" was offered for official debate the next day. Panel members expect to re-examine some of those discarded amendments in an effort to reach further compromises, according to an aide who participated in the process.

Budget
Tech Goodies Are Plentiful In New National Energy Bill
     The national energy bill just cleared by Congress after years of debate is salted with technology-related programs and projects, as well as scholarship authorizations for science and math education. The measure, H.R. 6, would provide direction and authorize funding for a wide range of activities, including advanced scientific computing for energy missions. The bill would direct the Energy Department secretary to conduct a program to support "fundamental research in science and engineering disciplines related to energy applications." Supercomputing is woven into other areas of the legislation. In a new program called Genome to Life, Congress has directed the agency to develop computational methods to "advance understanding of complex biological systems." Energy also would be directed to tap supercomputing for fusion research.

Budget
Vehicle Database, Other Tech Ideas Included In Road Bill
     Highway authorization bills are about more than road construction these days, and the long-stalled legislation that Congress cleared last week includes various technology-related provisions. Among other issues, the measure calls for an online federal registration system for commercial vehicles and the establishment of standards for state departments of motor vehicles that use data brokers to verify commercial driver information. Under the measure, the Unified Carrier Registration System would replace the current Transportation Department identification system for commercial trucks and buses. It was known as the Single State Registration System. The new system would serve as a clearinghouse to store information on foreign and domestic motor carriers, freight forwarders and others required to register with the department. The bill also calls for an "information-based identity authentication program" for commercial driver's licenses.

Budget
Health IT Spending Plans Fall Short Of Predicted Needs
     The Health and Human Services Department (HHS) is preparing to award contracts this fall for a health information technology network, but all funding proposals for fiscal 2006 would be far less than the estimated costs to build the network. A report in the Aug. 2 issue of the "Annals of Internal Medicine" estimates the five-year capital investment at $156 billion, or $31 billion annually, plus another $48 billion in annual operating costs. Both the president's budget request and the Senate and House spending proposals for HHS would miss that mark by billions of dollars. "It is enough to get us off the ground ... but clearly not enough to get to our goal," said Janet Marchibroda, CEO of the eHealth Initiative.

Budget
Lawmakers Move To Freeze Money For Digital Mapping
     House and Senate appropriators are hoping to freeze funding at last year's level for a five-year, billion-dollar initiative to modernize and digitize the nation's flood maps. The House and Senate this summer approved $30.8 billion in fiscal 2006 funding for the Homeland Security Department, and that includes $200 million for the flood-map modernization fund. That is the same level Congress allocated last year and $68,000 less than what President Bush requested. House and Senate appropriators plan to negotiate a compromise bill for the department in September. House appropriators took the action because they said they were misled by officials to believe that the program was "a means to update all of the nation's flood maps." The department last year began updating 25,000 of the 100,000 maps with geographic information systems and posting them on the Internet.

Courts
Documents Reveal Nominee Roberts' Thoughts On Privacy
     Supreme Court nominee John Roberts appears not to view the concept of privacy as a fundamental "right" but as a legal construct that courts must interpret narrowly. A recent dissent that Roberts authored as an appellate judge bolsters that impression. In a draft article on judicial restraint authored during the early 1980s when he assisted the attorney general, Roberts wrote that courts could not "discern" the "abstraction" of a "right to privacy" within the Constitution and then use that interpretation to "elevate it over other constitutional rights and powers." And in a dissent in a Fourth Amendment dispute concerning the constitutionality of two policemen searching a suspect's car trunk without a warrant, Roberts sided with the law enforcers. The documents may provide clues to Roberts' thinking on privacy and technology-related cases.

International
EU To Invest $1.25 Billion In IT, Communications
     The European Commission announced that it will invest $1.25 billion in information and communications technologies (ICT) and launch 276 research projects. The projects will focus on nanotechnology, mobile communications and the use of high-speed Internet technology. The funding is targeted at areas such as Internet-based government, health, learning and business. Small to medium-sized businesses will work on roughly 20 percent of the projects. The commission is now set to begin negotiations with project leaders over how the $1 billion will be allocated. The funding falls under the European Union's sixth research framework program, which ends in 2007. The commission also has proposed a tremendous jump in funding for security and research, from the current $18 million annually to roughly $700 million in 2007. The commission concurrently has said it will fund 13 new technology research projects, including cyber-security initiatives and the use of unmanned aerial vehicles.