Congress has turned its attention to ICANN again, holding two hearings, on opposite sides of the Capitol Building, in one week. The Senate Commerce Committee starts things off on Wednesday, September 20th with a hearing titled Internet Governance: The Future of ICANN. The House Commerce Committee follows on Thusday, September 21st with ICANN Internet Goverance: Is It Working? ICANN CEO Paul Twomey and the Department of Commerce's John Kneuer will be testifying at both hearings.

Several things leap out at me. First, the themes for both hearings attempt to interweave some vague notion of "Internet governance" with ICANN. Having fought fierce battles in the UN, ITU, and IGF the last few years to say that ICANN had nothing to do with "governance," the two subjects selected by U.S. officials are, at best, ironic. Apparently, we must keep the subject of ICANN out of the Internet Governance Forum meetings in Greece because, the U.S. says, ICANN has nothing to do with "governance," but when we hold our own hearings in our own nation, we pair the subjects because, well, they're inextricably linked.

The other thing I noticed is that Verisign is represented on both panels. Ken Silva, Verisign's Chief Security Officer, will testify before the Senate panel, while Steve DelBianco, a paid Verisign flak from the thinly disguised "Association for Competitive Technology," is testifying before the House panel. The Department of Commerce has not approved Verisign's .COM agreement with ICANN, so expect the Verisign team of Silva and DelBianco to speak about how the billion dollar increase in .COM registration fees will help secure the Internet's tubes.

The two obvious topics for both hearings are (a) what should the next agreement between ICANN and the Department of Commerce look like? and (b) should the Department of Commerce approve the proposed .COM registry agreement between ICANN and Verisign? Expect lots of posturing on both subjects.

Webcast Information: Senate Hearing: details on Capitolhearings.org. House Hearing, details on Subcommittee page. No mention yet on whether either hearing will be broadcast by C-SPAN.