Law makers active on tech issues today

The International Herald Tribune reports that the House of Representatives was scheduled today to vote on legislation that clarifies the law barring for-profit companies from using names that sound like official government agencies.  The vote comes on the heels of Internal Revenue Service commissioner, Mark Everson, warning twice in the last two weeks “about confusion over the official Web site of his agency and commercial firms playing off that confusion.”

According to the Mercury News, “[c]oncerned that the state’s electronic waste recycling program is underused, state lawmakers [in California] have proposed several bills to expand the effort, including imposing a new $6 fee on the sale of personal computers to help pay for recycling.”

Om Malik writes on GigaOm that the FTTH (Fiber To The Home) Council is pushing the US government to adopt a 100 Megabit Nation policy. “The Council says that we have the technology, and the carriers (and cable providers) have the networks to make it all a reality – with a little pressure from Washington D.C.”

According to Inc.com, the Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy reported on Monday that “[s]mall businesses generate fully half of private-sector gross domestic product.”

Finally, PCWorld.com points out that “Microsoft Corp., as part of its outreach to the open-source community, has released a new official Windows Media Player plug-in for Firefox 2.0 that resolves problems with the older one.”