A state court rejected a Texas Public Utility Commission appeal of a trial court’s temporary injunction against the PUC for not fully funding Texas USF (TUSF). The 3rd Texas District Court of Appeals in Austin ruled Wednesday in favor of appellee AMA TechTel, a CLEC, for similar reasons that the court gave in a June 30 decision supporting Texas Telephone Association (TTA) and other RLECs in a similar case (see 2207010045). Earlier in the AMA case, the state appeals court required the PUC to pay the CLEC the full amount of state USF support it was owed since Dec. 1. "While the present case appears before us in a different procedural posture from that in TTA, the application of legal principles to the pleaded and undisputed facts is substantively the same and our analysis and holdings are largely dictated by that opinion,” Justice Thomas Baker wrote Wednesday. As in the June 30 opinion, state law and PUC regulations preclude the state commission from underfunding TUSF, said Baker: The PUC must pay monthly support amounts. Like the RLEC group, AMA sufficiently pleaded a Texas Administrative Procedure Act claim, he said. The court overruled the PUC's contention that AMA failed to exhaust administrative remedies before bringing the APA challenge. AMA sufficiently pleaded a viable regulatory takings claim and the trial court didn't abuse its discretion when it granted temporary injunctive relief to AMA, he said. "It was the PUC Parties’ decision to amend the Solix contract and refuse to fund the TUSF that altered the parties’ relationship,” so “the status quo is the relationship of the parties prior to the PUC Parties’ challenged actions,” wrote Baker. “We reject the premise implicit in the PUC Parties’ contention that a party may act unlawfully and then claim that the impacts of that unlawful behavior cannot be remedied or mitigated pending a trial on the merits.” Justices Melissa Goodwin and Gisela Triana, the judge who wrote the TTA decision, joined Baker in Wednesday’s opinion. Following the earlier court actions, Texas commissioners Aug. 1 raised the revenue-based TUSF surcharge to 24% from 3.3% (see 2207140060). The Texas PUC and AMA didn’t comment.

Alaska’s U.S. senators sounded the alarm over federal maps that will be used for determining funding under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program. The Republicans’ remarks Tuesday at a livestreamed Alaska Broadband Summit followed state officials raising concerns about holes in the FCC’s broadband serviceable location fabric to be used in upcoming maps (see 2208080056). State, local, tribal and federal officials stressed the need for engagement and collaboration to ensure funding goes where it’s needed.

The Senate passed a revised version of the Inflation Reduction Act reconciliation package as a substitute amendment to the earlier scuttled Build Back Better Act (HR-5376) with language that allows companies to deduct the value of “qualified wireless spectrum … in computing taxable income” under a proposed 15% minimum corporate tax. A qualified frequency holding would be exempt if it’s used “in the trade or business of a wireless telecommunications carrier” and the carrier acquired the spectrum license after Dec. 31, 2007, “and before the date” of HR-5376’s enactment. The Senate voted 50-50 Sunday along party lines on the measure, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tiebreaker in its favor. HR-5376 now heads back to the House, which is expected to take it up Friday. The HR-5376 “technical fix” means the wireless industry “will be able to keep the favorable tax treatment it enjoyed when it obtained the bulk of its current spectrum holdings,” New Street’s Blair Levin said in an email to investors. “Spectrum acquired prior to 2007 has already been fully amortized” for tax purposes and frequencies “acquired after the law's enactment will be acquired with the understanding of the new tax treatment.” The U.S. “wireless industry applauds this important technical fix which preserves the industry’s ability to maintain America’s 5G leadership and help close the digital divide,” CTIA President Meredith Baker said in a statement before HR-5376 passed. Baker and several Senate Commerce Committee Republicans raised concerns last week that an earlier version of the corporate tax language would include spectrum assets and could hurt U.S. wireless carriers (see 2208020076). The corporate tax “remains bad policy, but at least one unintended consequence averted” because of the spectrum carve-out, tweeted American Enterprise Institute Nonresident Senior Fellow Daniel Lyons.

Alaska found holes in the broadband serviceable location fabric the FCC is using for upcoming maps for determining Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) funding, Alaska officials told us. Also, some states initially had problems accessing the fabric created by the FCC’s contractor CostQuest. GCI Communications initially raised the potential for gaps, telling the FCC the "potential consequences for Alaska are serious.”

Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., raised concerns Wednesday that language in Democrats' proposed Inflation Reduction Act reconciliation package that would set a 15% minimum corporate tax rate would include wireless carriers' spectrum assets. CTIA President Meredith Baker urged lawmakers during a Tuesday Communications Subcommittee hearing to make a “technical correction” to the proposal so it doesn’t cover spectrum assets (see 2208020076). Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., hopes to have a final vote on the reconciliation bill this weekend. The 15% corporate tax “would not only reduce the GDP and kill jobs, but would disproportionately punish American wireless carriers who have invested heavily in resources to fuel connectivity and build state-of-the-art networks,” Wicker said: “Wireless carriers have spent hundreds of billions of private-sector dollars on spectrum assets” and the proposal “would apply retroactively and prospectively to those purchases, diverting billions of dollars intended for future investment.” No “other country in the world has instituted a tax on spectrum,” he said. “China is working to undermine the United States as it seeks to dominate 5G and next-generation wireless technology. This makes the Democrats’ tax proposal not only an economic security issue but a national security issue as well.”

The U.S., in a July 28 brief at the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska, argued oral argument is needed in a case over alleged Jones Act penalties committed by shipping companies Kloosterboer International Forwarding and Alaska Reefer Management. The U.S. pushed back against KIF and ARM's opposition to oral argument, arguing that the meeting is needed to "fully vet the complex issues in this case" and fully inform the court about the record (Kloosterboer International Forwarding v. United States, D. Alaska #3:21-00198).

Standard/Tegna deal opponents said the transaction can lead to collusion on retransmission consent negotiations and said Standard, Tegna and investor Apollo Global Management haven’t been transparent with the FCC. “We find ourselves hard pressed to explain Apollo/Cox’s choice to invest in a competitor that does not involve collusion,” said the American Television Alliance in reply comments in docket 22-162 by Monday’s deadline. A collection of public advocacy groups and Communications Workers of America sectors jointly said the deal should be designated for hearing. “The uncertainty of the sources of funding in this case and the convoluted ownership structure” need to be explored in a hearing, they said. The FCC also should act on a May motion that sought to compel more disclosures from the companies, said the joint filing from Common Cause, the United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry and others. They also denied claims the deal is good for diversity. The deal is uniquely designed to raise retransmission consent prices and merits FCC attention, said Altice. “Cox appears to have sold a single Boston station to Standard General so that Standard General, in turn, can use the station to buy 97 TEGNA stations with lower retransmission consent prices,” Altice said. “It is hard to imagine that an MVPD bargained for the possibility that Cox might essentially sell a station to a third-party so that the third party might acquire additional stations at Cox’s retransmission consent prices.” NCTA and ATVA asked the FCC to impose conditions to prevent joint negotiation or information sharing among the deal participants. “The proposed transaction creates a web of interlocking interests among the companies -- Standard General/TEGNA and CMG/Apollo -- thus raising concerns about information-sharing and coordination,” said NCTA. One commenter supported the deal. The transaction will create “enhanced opportunities to partner with Standard General and new TEGNA to better serve the Hispanic community in the United States, a community that has historically been underserved,” said Estrella Media.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative often found itself weighing the possible harm to U.S. consumers from the lists 3 and 4A Section 301 tariffs against the need to give the duties enough teeth to curb China’s allegedly unfair trade practices, the agency said in its 90-page “remand determination,” filed Aug. 1 at the Court of International Trade (In Re Section 301 Cases, CIT #21-00052). Submitting its bid to ease the court's concerns over modifications made to the third and fourth tariff waves, USTR provided its justifications for removing various goods from the tariff lists ranging from critical minerals to seafood products.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative often found itself weighing the possible harm to U.S. consumers from the Lists 3 and 4A Section 301 tariffs against the need to give the duties enough teeth to curb China’s allegedly unfair trade practices, said the agency in its 90-page “remand determination,” filed Monday in docket 1:21-cv-52 at the U.S. Court of International Trade.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative often found itself weighing the possible harm to U.S. consumers from the lists 3 and 4A Section 301 tariffs against the need to give the duties enough teeth to curb China’s allegedly unfair trade practices, the agency said in its 90-page “remand determination,” filed Aug. 1 at the Court of International Trade (In Re Section 301 Cases, CIT #21-00052). Submitting its bid to ease the court's concerns over modifications made to the third and fourth tariff waves, USTR provided its justifications for removing various goods from the tariff lists ranging from critical minerals to seafood products.