Overnight Tech: Senate grills FCC chief on Time Warner merger | House panel votes to ease driverless car regs | State Department may shutter cyber office | Facebook to launch subscription news service

FCC CHIEF DENIES TRUMP INTERFERED ON TIME WARNER MERGER: Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai told lawmakers on Wednesday that President Trump has not tried to influence his agency’s consideration of the AT&T-Time Warner merger.

In his reconfirmation hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee, Pai was repeatedly grilled about Trump’s attitude toward the press and whether it has affected the FCC.

“I have not directly had any conversations with anyone in the administration with respect to media regulatory proceedings,” Pai said. “To the best of my knowledge, no one on my staff or in the FCC has indirectly had any such conversations as well.”

Democrats have expressed outrage over a New York Times story that reported that the White House was considering using the merger as leverage over CNN, which is a Time Warner subsidiary.

The White House has a long-running feud with CNN over its coverage.

Democrats also called on the committee to hold a hearing to examine the media landscape in light of Trump’s attacks on the press and the recent uptick in media consolidation moves.

Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) cited the pending merger between Tribune Media and Sinclair Broadcast Group, a conservative broadcasting outlet that owns local stations across the country and employs former Trump aide Boris Epshteyn as a political analyst.

That merger will require FCC approval. But Pai has already cleared a major obstacle by pushing through a rule that eases restrictions on media ownership, a move that was highlighted on Wednesday.

“The contrasting approach here creates the very real perception that the Trump administration would act to reward friendly coverage and punish negative coverage,” Peters said during the hearing.

Read more here.

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HOUSE PANEL VOTES TO EASE DRIVERLESS CAR REGS: A House panel advanced a bill on Wednesday that would ease restrictions on self-driving cars, allowing automakers to manufacture up to 100,000 autonomous vehicles a year.

The legislation, which passed the House Commerce consumer protection subcommittee by voice vote, would exempt that yearly allotment from safety standards and would also preempt state laws concerning driverless cars.

If it is signed into law, the legislation would be the first to address the budding autonomous vehicle industry.

Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio), the chairman of the subcommittee, said that boosting the industry is vital to car safety.

Read more here.

HOUSE OVERSIGHT PASSES BACKUP PLAN FOR IT MODERNIZATION: The House Oversight Committee approved a bill that would extend efforts to help the federal government modernize its information technology.

The Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) originally passed in 2015, aiming to streamline some aspects of IT acquisitions and encourage better practices, including consolidating federal data centers. But many of the rules in that bill will sunset soon.

The FITARA Enhancement Act, approved by the panel Wednesday, would eliminate the end date for rules that require risk assessments for IT investments and reviews of IT investments for efficiency and waste. Those rules were originally set to expire in December 2019.

Read more here.

STATE DEPT REPORTEDLY CLOSING CYBER OFFICE: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson plans to close an office that coordinates with other countries on cybersecurity and fold it into a bureau focused on economic issues, Bloomberg is reporting.

The move would shutter the Office of the Coordinator for Cyber Issues, which opened under the Obama administration in 2011.

The decision would be part of the department’s effort to reorganize operations and reduce bureaucratic waste, set forth by a March executive order signed by President Trump.

In response to the report, a State Department official told The Hill that “there are no predetermined outcomes” in the redesign review, which Tillerson is aiming to complete by fall. The official would not say whether closing the cyber office is under consideration.

Read more here.

FACEBOOK NEWS: Facebook announced on Wednesday that the company is debuting a subscription news product. “One of the things we heard in our initial meetings from many newspapers and digital publishers is that ‘we want a subscription product —  we want to be able to see a paywall in Facebook,'” Campbell Brown, head of Facebook’s news partnerships, announced at the Digital Publishing Innovation Summit, according to The Street.

Brown said that the product comes in response to complaints from news organizations over a lack of control they have over sharing articles on Facebook.

Read more here.

ON TAP:

The Senate Commerce Committee will hold a hearing about updating FirstNet at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday.

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Wired: The kernel of truth at Trump’s voter fraud summit