The House Energy and Commerce Committee has given broadcasters a pass for much of 2009, but this week it’ll tee up a couple of topics of interest. The first is Tuesday 6/9/09 at 10AM, and concerns whether companies are allowed to make eco-friendly claims too easily. Then on Thursday, three bills will be considered together, two of which affect broadcasters – the topics are ad volume and LPFM.
The Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection is hosting “It’s Too Easy Being Green: Defining Fair Green Marketing Practices.”
The witness list is already out, and it does not appear to include anybody who might defend the marketers. On the panel will be James Kohm, Director, Enforcement Division, Federal Trade Commission; M. Scot Case, Vice President, TerraChoice, Executive Director, EcoLogo Program; Urvashi Rangan, Ph.D., Director, Technical Policy, Consumers Union; Dara O’Rourke, Ph.D., Associate Professor, University of California Berkeley, Co-Founder, GoodGuide; and Scott P. Cooper, Vice President, Government Relations, American National Standards Institute.
The Thursday session, hosted by the usual Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet. It will look at three bills, H.R.1084, the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act (CALM), H.R.1147, the Local Community Radio Act of 2009 and H.R.1133, the Family Telephone Connection Protection Act of 2009.
RBR/TVBR observation: Just to refresh everybody’s memory, the local radio act would promote LPFM service, in part by eliminating third adjacency protection. It comes on the heels of a 3rd Circuit ruling allowing the FCC to waive 2nd adjacent protection to allow 40 LPFM stations to survive encroachment from full-powered stations.
