The FCC approved on a 3-2 party line vote an NPRM seeking comment on requiring disclosures for political ads that use AI-generated content. The proposal, which was approved July 10 on circulation but not released until Thursday, doesn’t specify the timing of an eventual order. Commissioner Brendan Carr and Federal Election Commission Chair Sean Cooksey condemned it as an attempt to interfere with the 2024 election. The FCC declined to comment on the intended timing of a final rule, or the delay in the item’s release.

Litigants sparred at a July 23 oral argument at the Court of International Trade on whether the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on steel wheels from China cover wheels shipped from Thailand with either a rim or a disc made in China. The parties disagreed on whether a prior scope ruling from the Commerce Department spoke to whether these "mixed" goods -- wheels made with either a Chinese-origin rim or disc, but not both -- are covered by the AD/CVD scope (Asia Wheel v. United States, CIT # 23-00096).

The Commerce Department wrongly called its own decision memoranda in other, similar proceedings “new factual information” that could be, and had been, “untimely raised,” a petitioner said in a July 22 brief -- six months after that petitioner relied on them in its own administrative filings (ArcelorMittal Tubular Products v. U.S., CIT # 24-00039).

FCC commissioners adopted a series of items implementing the Martha Wright-Reed Act of 2022 during their open meeting Thursday (see 2407140001). A report and order reduces the permanent per minute rate caps for audio calls and for the first time establishes interim rate caps for video calls for incarcerated people. The law also clarified the FCC’s authority to also set rate caps for intrastate and international calls.

FCC commissioners approved 3-2 a draft order and Further NPRM at their Thursday open meeting that lets schools and libraries use E-rate support for off-premises Wi-Fi hot spots and wireless internet services. The FCC Republicans issued dissents as expected (see 2407170035). In a lengthy dissent, Commissioner Brendan Carr questioned whether the order would survive a legal challenge.

California’s age-appropriate design law doesn’t violate the First Amendment because it regulates social media data practices, not content, the office of Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) argued Wednesday before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court’s three-judge panel suggested the First Amendment applies.

The National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America, the International Air Transport Association and three other trade groups have asked House and Senate leaders to compel the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to delay the implementation of a rule that would affect the importation of dogs into the U.S.

Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., remain opposed to the Kids Online Safety Act, which is preventing Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., from moving the bill by unanimous consent (see 2406200053).

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- State utility commissioners at the NARUC conference grappled Tuesday with the U.S. Supreme Court reversal of the Chevron doctrine. Loper Bright, “though not framed as a federalist decision," has "modest pro-state implications,” Wilkinson Barker’s Daniel Kahn said during a panel of telecom law experts. Earlier, an NTCA official told the NARUC Telecom Committee that his association plans to seek reconsideration of an FCC order on next-generation 911 if commissioners approve it at their Thursday meeting.

Allied Telecom Group is too late to challenge a 2015 procurement in which the District of Columbia Public Schools selected the D.C. Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) DC-Net program to provide E-rate services, the city said Friday at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (case 1:22-cv-00653-CJN). Last month, Allied said it sought to block the “cozy relationship” between D.C. Public Schools and OCTO. Seeking summary judgment against the telecom company and opposing summary judgment against itself, D.C. wrote: “This is a procurement dispute that could have -- and should have -- been raised in the proper forum at the proper time.” Allied waited seven years to sue, the District said. Also, the Telecom Act precludes “equitable private enforcement of the competitive bidding requirements of the E-rate program,” D.C. said. “But even if that were not the case, Plaintiff is not entitled to summary judgment because it fails to demonstrate any conflict between the federal requirements of the E-rate program and District procurement law generally or the 2015 bidding process related to the E-rate program specifically.”