All three 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges hearing oral argument Wednesday on Gray Television’s appeal of a $518,000 FCC forfeiture order seemed skeptical of the agency’s rationale for the penalty amount but split on Gray’s arguments against the FCC’s authority over deals for TV station network affiliation.

NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson came under repeated fire Wednesday from House Republicans for low-cost offering requirements in the broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program, with the lawmakers repeatedly charging -- and Davidson denying -- they amount to rate regulation. The House Communications Subcommittee oversight hearing also saw lawmakers chide one another across the aisle about the looming funding cliff of the affordable connectivity program (ACP).

U.S. Chamber of Commerce representatives met with an aide to FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez on the group’s perspective on a November Further NPRM on protecting consumers from SIM swapping and port-out fraud. The Chamber weighed in on a single issue: whether to require wireless carriers to explicitly exclude resolution of SIM change and port-out fraud disputes from arbitration clauses in providers’ agreements with their customers or abrogate such clauses (see 2401180053). “We noted that the Commission lacks the authority to prohibit arbitration per the Federal Arbitration Act as well as discussed the benefits of arbitration agreements for consumers,” said a filing this week in docket 02-278. The Chamber representatives also opposed a proposal to prohibit bulk billing arrangements (see 2405080043): “We noted that bulk billing arrangements provide significant benefits to consumers, enable greater access to broadband, and that a rulemaking at this point is premature.”

Broadband providers, broadcasters, satellite companies and the FirstNet Authority urged the FCC not to expand outage reporting requirements. Meanwhile, groups such as Public Knowledge, Next Century Cities and The Utility Reform Network (TURN) said increased reporting rules are a matter of public safety. Comments were filed in docket 21-346 by Monday’s deadline.

The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:

The number of states with privacy laws reached 18 after Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) signed SB-541/HB-567 on Thursday. Vermont and Minnesota could soon join the ranks. While not first, Maryland “sets the new standard” for state privacy laws and “raises the bar” for Congress, said Caitriona Fitzgerald, Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) deputy director, in an interview. Meanwhile, in California, the first state with a privacy law, board members of the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) slammed the preemptive current draft of a privacy bill from Congress.

U.S. District Judge Michael Watson for Southern Ohio in Columbus reserved ruling in part and denied in part Vivek Ramaswamy’s March 21 and April 1 motions to dismiss Thomas Grant’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act complaint, said the judge’s signed opinion and order Friday (docket 2:24-cv-00281).

The FCC’s digital discrimination broadband order “is illegal on at least three grounds,” the Pacific Legal Foundation and the Washington Legal Foundation said in an 8th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court amicus brief Tuesday (docket 24-1179). The brief supports the 20 industry petitioners that seek to vacate the order as unlawful (see 2404230032). When Congress grants lawmaking authority to a federal agency, it must lay down by legislative act an intelligible principle to which the agency can conform, according to the brief. Section 60506 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act directs the FCC to adopt rules that facilitate equal access to broadband, including by preventing digital discrimination of access based on income level, race, ethnicity, color, religion or national origin, it said. The industry petitioners “persuasively explain” that Section 60506's language doesn’t permit the FCC to implement disparate impact liability, it said. But if it did, then that language violates the nondelegation doctrine by failing to provide an intelligible principle governing such liability, it said. “Virtually any action that a regulated entity can take will have a disparate impact along one or more dimensions of income level, race, ethnicity, color, or religion,” said the brief. That’s especially true because of the inclusion of income level, “which means that any decision by a covered entity lowering or raising prices will have a disparate impact based on income and thus come within the FCC’s enforcement authority,” it said. The authority to promulgate disparate impact rules “is a major question to which Congress is required to speak clearly,” it said. Because Congress didn’t speak “clearly to this particular question” in the statute, the FCC’s order is “invalid,” it said. The order also requires covered entities to “treat people differently based on race, in violation of the constitutional guarantee of equal protection,” it said.

The FCC’s digital discrimination broadband order “is illegal on at least three grounds,” the Pacific Legal Foundation and the Washington Legal Foundation said in an 8th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court amicus brief Tuesday (docket 24-1179). The brief supports the 20 industry petitioners that seek to vacate the order as unlawful (see 2404230032). When Congress grants lawmaking authority to a federal agency, it must lay down by legislative act an intelligible principle to which the agency can conform, according to the brief. Section 60506 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act directs the FCC to adopt rules that facilitate equal access to broadband, including by preventing digital discrimination of access based on income level, race, ethnicity, color, religion or national origin, it said. The industry petitioners “persuasively explain” that Section 60506's language doesn’t permit the FCC to implement disparate impact liability, it said. But if it did, then that language violates the nondelegation doctrine by failing to provide an intelligible principle governing such liability, it said. “Virtually any action that a regulated entity can take will have a disparate impact along one or more dimensions of income level, race, ethnicity, color, or religion,” said the brief. That’s especially true because of the inclusion of income level, “which means that any decision by a covered entity lowering or raising prices will have a disparate impact based on income and thus come within the FCC’s enforcement authority,” it said. The authority to promulgate disparate impact rules “is a major question to which Congress is required to speak clearly,” it said. Because Congress didn’t speak “clearly to this particular question” in the statute, the FCC’s order is “invalid,” it said. The order also requires covered entities to “treat people differently based on race, in violation of the constitutional guarantee of equal protection,” it said.

Apple’s “gatekeeping” of its App Store and “arbitrary decisions” hurt “honest developers,” alleged a Monday antitrust complaint (docket 5:24-cv-02698) against the iPhone maker in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Jose.