FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said Thursday that staffing changes are coming to the FCC and that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is likely headed to the agency. Democratic Commissioner Anna Gomez warned about the Donald Trump administration’s continuing moves against the federal workforce. Commissioners agreed on three wireless items (see 2502270042) and Calm Act rules at the meeting, as well as taking additional steps on robocalls.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr attempted to strike a balance during his Thursday post-commission meeting news conference in his response to a question about where he stands in the battle that Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is waging against DOD opposition to reallocating any military-controlled spectrum for commercial wireless use (see 2502190068). Carr said policymakers “can find a path forward” to increase spectrum availability that will also “fully protect the interests of our national security” and DOD.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr told reporters Wednesday that he gave the 175-member House-side Republican Study Committee a “soup-to-nuts” closed-door briefing on his agenda, which participants said also touched on his opinion of the commission’s actions under former Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel that drew frequent GOP derision. The House Commerce Committee, meanwhile, voted 29-19 along party lines late Tuesday night to adopt its oversight plan for the 119th Congress after a sometimes-rancorous debate over Democrats’ unsuccessful amendment that would expand the panel’s scrutiny of the FCC to include investigating “any instances in which the Commission or its officers, employees, or agents engages in or facilitates censorship or otherwise interferes with” freedom of speech (see 2502250065).
Buu Nygren, president of the Navajo Nation, urged FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to make a tribal priority window part of future FCC auctions of AWS and upper C-band spectrum. “The success of the 2.5 GHz Rural Tribal Priority Window has demonstrated the transformational impact of policies that provide direct spectrum access to Tribal Nations,” said a filing posted Friday in docket 13-185. The 2.5 GHz window, established under Republican Chairman Ajit Pai’s “leadership in 2020, was an unprecedented federal policy that enabled over 300 federally recognized tribes to obtain spectrum in rural areas,” Nygren said. The Institute for Local Self-Reliance asked the FCC to add questions on tribal windows to the C-band notice of inquiry and AWS-3 NPRM before commissioners, both set for votes Thursday (see 2502060062). “One of the great challenges in addressing the lack of modern communications technologies that Tribal Nations and the Commission face together in their joint efforts to address their broadband challenges is the lack of access to spectrum and spectrum licensing opportunities,” said a filing posted Friday. The 2.5 GHz window “dramatically increased the number of Tribal Nations holding spectrum licenses from 18 to at least 319.”
The outlook is uncertain about whether President Donald Trump will attempt to fire Democratic members of the FCC, as the administration asserts its authority over “so-called independent” agencies (see 2502190073). It’s unclear whether the FCC and its Democratic members, Anna Gomez and Geoffrey Starks, are in Trump’s sights, but no one is taking anything for granted from the current administration, industry experts said. Gomez is emerging as the more outspoken critic of the regime under Chairman Brendan Carr, especially on media items (see 2502200023).
President Donald Trump’s latest norm-busting executive order (see 2502180069) directing the FCC, among other "so-called independent" agencies and executive branch bodies, to submit regulatory actions to the White House before they're published in the Federal Register could complicate Brendan Carr’s push to be an active chairman at the FCC, industry experts said Wednesday.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s announcement that the FCC will begin investigating regulatees with diversity, equality and inclusion programs appears to be among the first actions a federal agency has taken to enforce President Donald Trump’s DEI executive order, though the FCC’s authority in this area is unclear, attorneys and academics told us. In his letter Tuesday to Comcast, Carr said the agency plans “broader efforts to root out invidious forms of DEI discrimination across all of the sectors the FCC regulates.”
A legal challenge to the FCC's over-the-air reception devices (OTARD) rules might face procedural problems, a federal judge said Tuesday. But the three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit also seemed skeptical during oral argument (docket 24-1108) of the commission's creating a "human presence" requirement in its OTARD rules for Indian Peak Properties. The company is appealing an FCC order that denied its petitions for declaratory ruling. Indian Peak was seeking a federal preemption under the OTARD rule of a Rancho Palos Verdes, California, decision to revoke its local permit for the deployment of rooftop antennas on a property (see 2405060035).
The FCC’s draft notice of inquiry on opening the upper C band for commercial use acknowledges numerous incumbents using the spectrum and seeks “detailed and evidence-based comments” from all affected parties. Also on Thursday, the FCC released a draft NPRM on rules for the AWS-3 auction and other items, teeing them up for the FCC’s Feb. 27 open meeting, including new rules for wireless emergency alerts (see 2502050057).
The FCC abruptly declined to defend the inclusion of a nonbinary gender category in its broadcaster workplace diversity data collection shortly before the start of oral argument at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday. The eleventh-hour shift could lead to the court declining to rule on the case, attorneys told us.