The White House turned up the heat Wednesday on Congress to approve incentive auction legislation. It held a spectrum event at the Old Executive Office Building, complete with a speech by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and a panel of economists. The White House released a letter signed by 112 economists supporting the administration’s spectrum efforts.

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The FCC will get some scrutiny in a delayed commission report (CD March 9 p4) about prospects for the media industry, its author told industry executives and lobbyists. Steve Waldman said Wednesday that his forthcoming Future of Media report will offer a close look at the regulator’s media policies and say which are working and which aren’t. “We also will try to be honest about the FCC and its own policies,” although such inward looks aren’t “always a welcome effort” at the institution examined, he said. At the FCC, “to my delight, I have found that very few want to hold onto things the way they are just because that’s the way they have been,” he said. “There is a very strong desire to make sure that policy is effective."

The FCC is changing rules for mobile satellite service (MSS), in an order released late Wednesday. The order was largely uncontroversial and is in line with the proposed rulemaking from last year (CD July 16 p1). The document will add secondary market spectrum leasing rules for terrestrial use in bands allocated for MSS and give terrestrial S-band use co-primary status. The order was developed by the Wireless and International bureaus and Office of Engineering and Technology.

A dismal budget climate shouldn’t preclude support for broadband in tribal lands, Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, said at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing Tuesday. Inouye, the Appropriations Committee’s chairman, signaled that he would support increased FCC funding for that purpose. Advocates for Native American communities sought additional broadband funding, including through the Universal Service Fund and a new Native Nations Broadband Fund.

The House approved 241-178 Tuesday a rule clearing the way for a final vote on a resolution of disapproval to overturn the FCC’s net neutrality order. The debate on the rule presaged a fight that’s expected when House Joint Resolution 37 hits the House floor, probably Wednesday or Thursday.

Small cable operators are making a novel attempt to place conditions on approval of the sale of a TV station, over concerns its new owner could jointly strike retransmission consent deals with pay-TV providers. It’s the latest salvo in a battle over retrans policies. The American Cable Association asked the FCC last month to impose conditions rarely sought in previous sales of TV stations (CD March 18 p10). The association wants the commission to either block a proposed purchase of the ABC affiliate in Topeka, Kan., or forbid new owner PBC Communications from signing a retrans deal with anyone in the market including New Vision TV, with which PBC has similar arrangements in other markets.

The FCC on Wednesday is expected to approve an order requiring Video Relay Service companies to submit to yearly audits and have their executives certify company financial records under penalty of perjury and give federal whistle-blower protections to VRS employees and agents, commission officials said. Relay companies would be forbidden to be paid by the minute for their services and wouldn’t be able to hand out bonuses for increasing per-minute collections, under the proposal.

GENEVA -- A major ITU treaty conference in 2012 may deal with the economics of the international telecom transport mechanism, numbering misuse, and possibly cybersecurity and quality of service, said officials familiar with preparations. The first meeting this week in a new round of preparatory talks is building on discussions that started in 1998. Talks on Internet governance issues are possible but probably unlikely, American telecom lawyer Herb Marks told us. A 2010 policy-setting conference prompted the preparations, officials said.

FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said she has some “serious concerns” that new obstacles, like anti-municipal broadband bills in some states, are being erected. Such legislation is directly contrary to the National Broadband Plan goals and could endanger some stimulus projects, she said in an interview Monday.