LANSING ? New cable TV legislation could promise to be among the most contentious of the lame duck session as it moves forward for review by the Michigan Senate Technology and Energy Committee, which has scheduled a Wednesday meeting to discuss HR 6456.

Meanwhile, Google ran a full-page advertisement in some newspapers saying the bill could allow “big phone and cable TV monopolies” to block such Internet services such as YouTube (which Google recently announced it was buying).

And the Michigan Chamber of Commerce issued a statement urging the Senate to pass the bill as it came from the House.

The hotly-contested measure passed the House on November 14 but had not yet been assigned a committee. Several committees had been under consideration for the bill that has been vigorously challenged by local communities in the state.

The committee chair, Sen. Bruce Patterson (R-Canton) discussed the bill over the weekend with Senate Majority Leader Ken Sikkema and Monday Sikkema decided to assign the bill to the Technology and Energy Committee.

The committee will meet on the bill at 3 p.m., Wednesday.

The measure has been flagged by Sikkema as one he wants to see completed during the lame duck session. Gov. Jennifer Granholm has indicated she has objections to some elements of the bill as it came from the House.

But local governments intend to push amendments that were rejected in the House that will give them greater protection over the abrogation of cable contracts and to ensure they do not totally lose revenues cable TV licenses now generate.

And Google got into the fray last week when it announced its concern over the bill’s potential effect on net neutrality. The advertisement it ran on Monday urged readers to contact the Senate to urge support for “an open Internet.”

Ari Adler, spokesperson for Sikkema, said the issues being raised will be looked at by the Senate, though he could not say what might be added.

On Tuesday, an organization called SavetheInternet.com said it plans to filed petitions signed by 18,000 residents challenging the bill as it came from the House.

But the Michigan Chamber, in a memo sent Senate members, said that wholesale changes should not be made to the bill. “A small number of genuine technical amendments” could be made, but the bill as it passed the House largely meets the goals the chamber set for the legislation.

The issue of net neutrality should not be decided by the state but by the federal government, the chamber said in its memo. Any attempt to deal with the issue at the state level should not be attempted until separate legislation can be introduced next year, it said.

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