The House Appropriations Committee Subcommittee for Homeland Security advanced Department of Homeland Security fiscal year 2015 appropriations legislation by unanimous voice vote on May 28. Committee Democratic leadership expressed support for the legislation during the markup. Lawmakers did not offer or debate amendments to the legislation. The full Appropriations Committee will now consider the bill. The legislation would boost funding for CBP and mandate spending for completion of the Automated Commercial Environment (see 14052817).
The State Department's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls issued the following name and address changes on May 27:
The House Appropriations Committee released its Department of Homeland Security fiscal year 2015 (FY15) funding legislation, which includes a $219.6 billion boost in discretionary appropriations for CBP from FY14 levels (see 14011423). The legislation would authorize $10.78 billion in discretionary appropriations for CBP, of which $3.27 million should come from the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund. The committee is seeking to appropriate $8.3 billion of the total discretionary appropriations for customs, agricultural inspections and other primary agency activities. The bill would also provide $810 million for the CBP operation and improvement of automated systems, including $141 million mandatory appropriations for the Automated Commercial Environment. The Appropriations Committee legislation requires $481 million in funds to remain available through FY19 for the operation, maintenance and repair of land ports of entry. The CBP appropriations are $98.3 million above the President Barack Obama’s FY15 request, according to the committee. The funding would support 23,775 CBP officers, said a committee fact sheet on the bill (here). The bill would also deny Obama's proposal to increase aviation passenger security fees and CBP user fees (see 14031217), it said.
The State Department's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls issued the following name and address changes on May 20:
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service posted revised guidelines on shipments of seed potatoes between Canada and the United States (here). The changes to its 2009 “Guidelines on Surveillance and Phytosanitary Actions for the Potato Cyst Nematodes Globodera rostochiensis and Globodera pallid” include a reduction in the amount of soil sampling and testing that is required to ship seed potatoes between Canada and the U.S., as well as adjustments to the process for releasing regulated agricultural land and for deregulating fields no longer used for agriculture. APHIS says the changes are already in effect.
Recent trade-related bills introduced in Congress include:
The FCC Media Bureau dismissed 14 low-power FM applications filed by Antonio Guel due to information provided on Form 318. An independent Audio Division staff analysis identified a number of discrepancies and commonalities in the information provided in the applications, the bureau said in a letter to Guel (http://fcc.us/1sARcfk). Staff found that in some cases, the actual occupant at the listed mailing address wasn’t the applicant listed on Form 318, it said. It was established that none of the applicants or applicants’ board members had any relationship with the occupant at the address listed in the application, it said. There also were issues involving changes in ownership and reasonable site assurance, the bureau said. The applicants include East Memphis (Tennessee) Community Radio, Greensboro (North Carolina) Community Radio, and Sugar Land (Texas) Community Radio. The applications were filed last year during the LPFM filing window, the bureau said.
Broadcasters on the fence about participation in the incentive auction are unlikely to be encouraged to participate by Thursday’s auction order (CD May 16 p5), and aspects of the FCC’s repacking plans may lead to litigation before the auction, several broadcast attorneys told us. An NAB release immediately after the FCC vote criticized the commission’s handling of the $1.75 billion repacking reimbursement fund and commitment to the TVStudy auction software, and the attorneys said there’s widespread industry concern that the FCC deferred many of the auction decisions to later proceedings. That delay could force opponents to take the commission to court sooner rather than later, said Cooley broadcast attorney Jason Rademacher. It’s much easier for a court to prevent or change a repacking process that hasn’t happened yet rather than unwind one that’s already occurred, several attorneys pointed out. “By deciding just these major policy things they've put people in a strategic box,” Rademacher said.
NATM’s search for a new executive director will cover a broad and long list of candidates with a goal of having a new executive by the group’s annual meeting in September, NATM members familiar with the process told us.
SAN ANTONIO -- With a range of wireless multiroom audio systems and standards emerging to challenge Sonos, retailers are scrambling to free up shelf space and carefully choose brands to support, ProSource dealers said at the group’s meeting.