Trusty Talks Spectrum and AI, Deflects on Firing Gomez
FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty said Wednesday she hopes to see agency action on a GPS replacement in 2026 and also discussed AI, network resilience and copper wire theft during a “fireside chat” with Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Nicol Turner Lee. In addition, Trusty said working with Democratic Commissioner Anna Gomez has been “a pleasure” but declined to respond to a question on whether she would support the White House firing Gomez if a third Republican was appointed to the agency. “I’ll defer to the president on the oversight and management of nominees,” she said. “I'm going to work with everyone and anyone at the commission to forward the agenda and the mission.”
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Trusty said U.S. leadership in communications was one of her main priorities at the FCC, highlighting the agency’s efforts to open up more spectrum and prepare for the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2027. Asked if the time that the FCC was without auction authority has put the U.S. behind globally, she said the upcoming upper C-band and AWS-3 auctions will help the country catch up. The FCC needs to work to free up spectrum for “a variety of users and use cases,” including space. “We need to continue engaging in interagency coordination as it relates to spectrum management matters,” she said. "And then we need to explore capabilities like integrated sensing and communications, where the same network carrying our data and communications traffic can also detect objects, measure distances, provide situational awareness and other sensing capabilities that federal users rely upon."
For WRC-27, Trusty said the public and private sectors need to work together to align on priorities, and the U.S. should be “engaged in pre-WRC coordination with our international allies.” Congressional backing for FCC spectrum moves going into the WRC will put the U.S. in a better position, she added. “I think it's top of mind for a lot of members, because they understand the importance of this conference in terms of defining some of our economic and national security objectives.”
Trusty also said GPS is critical to U.S. national security, and she hopes to see FCC action on the subject this year “so we can ensure the resiliency and redundancy” of the system. However, she conceded that the timing was up to Chairman Brendan Carr. “The chairman sets the agenda.” She similarly cited copper wire theft as a growing issue that affects national security and the economy. A regulatory move from the FCC probably wouldn’t fix the problem, she said, but the agency would support congressional action to criminalize copper theft.
Trusty discussed the FCC's efforts on multilingual wireless emergency alerts as well, including the delay in sending an item on the issue from the previous FCC to the Federal Register. “I think as a general matter, it's common for certain orders to be paused, to reevaluate them in the way they've been adopted in the waning days of an administration.” The delay doesn’t have to slow the implementation of the alerts, she said. “Alert originators can make these alerts available right now, and they could before this order was adopted.”
On AI, Trusty argued that a national framework is required to make the technology accessible for everyone. “A patchwork of state AI laws will create a situation of haves and have-nots, where you have some states that might take a more prescriptive regulatory approach to AI.” In a separate speech Wednesday at the Incompas Policy Summit, Trusty said she wants future FCC Communications Marketplace Reports to Congress to focus on AI-related communications infrastructure and issues. She expects an upcoming FCC proceeding on “federal reporting or disclosure standards for AI models to preempt state laws.”
In addition, Trusty said the FCC “has a responsibility under the statute to make sure broadcasters are fulfilling their public interest obligations.” The agency's recent equal-opportunity guidance and news distortion proceedings “are based on facts in the record, FCC precedent and the law itself, with the First Amendment -- of course -- as our North Star.”