I don't really follow ICANN news. I have some vague idea that they've made some questionable moves over the past several years. I know nothing of the Obama ad

I don't really follow ICANN news. I have some vague idea that they've made some questionable moves over the past several years. I know nothing of the Obama administration's involvement. Could somebody translate the article into a form I understand? ICANN manages the sale/assignment of IP addresses and manages the Root DNS Servers, right? How does USA currently control them and what does the proposed change mean?