Good oversight doesn’t include “wholesale attacks against agencies … for political purposes,” House Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., told reporters Thursday. She rejected amendments to the Continuing Resolution -- debated Thursday -- that would affect FCC operations. Eshoo said at a media briefing that her priorities for this Congress include spectrum reform, overhaul of the Universal Service Fund and building a public safety wireless broadband network.

House Commerce Committee Democrats urged colleagues to reject amendments to the Continuing Resolution affecting the FCC’s operations. Committee members Greg Walden, R-Ore., and Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., filed amendments banning the agency from acting on its December net neutrality order (CD Feb 16 p1). Three other nearly identical amendments were filed by Reps. Connie Mack, R-Fla., Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., and Sam Graves, R-Mo. Two amendments offered by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., would ban the agency from using funds to distribute cellphones or subsidize wireless service for low-income Americans under the Universal Service Fund. Two separate amendments, by Reps. Steve Scalise, R-La., and John Carter, R-Texas, would cut the FCC’s chief diversity officer, a position that’s been held by Mark Lloyd. In a Tuesday letter to other members, House Commerce Democrats said there’s “no sound basis” for any of the amendments. “To offer for approval on the floor, without the benefit of prior consideration by our Committee, amendments that terminate FCC proceedings and affect other policy areas completely undercuts the normal legislative process,” the Democrats said. The subjects in the amendments are not urgent, they added. “The Continuing Resolution is a budget bill; riders on the Open Internet rules or other FCC issues have no effect whatsoever on the critical spending and budget issues addressed by the Continuing Resolution. There is ample time to consider these proposals through regular order."

FCC oversight will be a top priority for the House Commerce Committee, the committee said in an oversight plan that was approved at a markup Tuesday. “Among other things, the Committee will evaluate the impact of FCC actions on voice, video, audio, and data services, and on public safety,” the committee said. “The Committee will pay particular attention to whether the FCC conducts cost-benefit and market analyses before imposing regulations. The Committee will also conduct oversight to improve FCC procedures and transparency.” The committee also plans oversight of the FCC’s implementation of the National Broadband Plan, and broadband funding provided under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, it said. It plans to examine FCC efforts to overhaul the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation, and reduce waste, fraud and abuse, the panel said. “The Committee will pay particular attention to whether the FCC is stemming growth in the fund, reducing duplicative subsidies, and targeting remaining subsidies to areas that are otherwise not economically feasible for the private sector to serve,” it said. The committee plans oversight on spectrum management and allocation by the FCC and NTIA, it said. It will review public safety communications needs, considering whether first responders have enough spectrum. The committee also plans oversight on implementing Phase II E911 service that allow public safety to locate wireless subscribers who dial 911. The committee will review whether government should continue to fund public broadcasting, it said. The committee plans to examine Internet governance and ICANN, as well as privacy and cybersecurity. On cybersecurity, the committee plans to review federal agency coordination and their compliance with the 2002 Homeland Security Act, as well as private sector e-commerce, it said.

The FCC will structure reverse auctions carefully so all carriers will have a shot at federal funding for broadband, Wireline Bureau Chief Sharon Gillett assured state regulators at the NARUC meeting Tuesday. “The intent is to be neutral,” she said. The commission’s recent rulemaking on the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation asks broad questions about reverse auctions but is essentially neutral about implementation -- focusing on census blocs, for instance, instead of geographic alignment, Gillett said.

The time may finally be right for an overhaul of the Universal Service Fund and of intercarrier compensation, said FCC Commissioner Michael Copps. He’s hopeful a “method” will be found to turn things like the rulemaking notice, approved by commissioners at last week’s monthly meeting, into “momentum” for making fixes to update the rules for the broadband age, he told us in a Q-and-A after his FCBA luncheon speech. “I think we've teed up an item that really raises all the issues,” he said, saying the regulator should hold stakeholder hearings on the issue. Copps used the speech to defend public broadcasting against Republican legislators’ efforts to cut funding and to urge the FCC and Chairman Julius Genachowski to do more to promote media diversity.

House Republicans will try to use the Continuing Resolution to stop the FCC from acting on its net neutrality order. In a speech Tuesday, House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., said he filed an amendment prohibiting the FCC from spending any money to implement the rule. Also at the NARUC meeting, Walden said he’s considering legislation to overhaul FCC process. He questioned the White House’s FY 2012 budget estimate for money that could be raised by voluntary incentive spectrum auctions.

Rising Universal Service Fund taxes on wireless services have added 0.9 points to the 16.3 percent combined federal, state, and local taxes and fees that wireless customers pay, said Scott Mackey of KSE Partners on a teleconference on wireless taxes Monday. In a report released Monday, Mackey said wireless consumers are now paying taxes, fees and government charges that exceed the levies on retail sales. He said the taxes are “disproportionately effecting” low and moderate income earners in America because many are “cutting the cord” and opting for wireless services and these taxes have a “huge impact” on them. They are also dampening service demand, Mackey said. According to the report, “states and local governments should study their existing tax systems and consider policies that transition their tax systems away from narrowly based wireless taxes and toward broad-based tax sources that do not distort consumer purchasing decisions and do not slow investment in critical infrastructure like wireless broadband,” Mackey said.

Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., plans to reintroduce her Universal Service Fund bill the week of March 1, after the Presidents’ Day recess, a spokeswoman said Monday. She said Matsui plans to discuss the bill at Wednesday’s House Communications Subcommittee hearing. The measure would create a USF Lifeline program to subsidize broadband service for low-income Americans. The bill isn’t directly tied to net neutrality, the hearing’s topic, but is part of the “broader discussion” about expanding Internet access, the spokeswoman said.

The White House estimated that it can raise nearly $28 billion from spectrum sales, including voluntary incentive auctions of broadcasters’ spectrum, but the budget it released Monday gives little detail on how it arrived at the figure. President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2012 budget proposed legislation providing authority for voluntary incentive auctions and estimated that spectrum auctions, “along with other measures to enable more efficient spectrum management,” will produce $27.8 billion over the next 10 years. The budget will face scrutiny particularly from House Republicans, who want to spend about $100 billion less in fiscal 2011 than Obama, said a telecom lobbyist.

The FCC’s failure to deal with VoIP endangers the commission’s broader Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation regime reforms, said Windstream Vice President for Federal Government Affairs Eric Einhorn Monday. The commission’s rulemaking notice isn’t definitive about VoIP traffic, he said at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ winter meeting, and without clarity nagging questions “could unravel the system before we even get to intercarrier compensation reform.” Einhorn was part of a panel on USF/intercarrier comp reform.