The California Public Utilities Commission recommended $144.3 million in federal grant funding for last-mile projects in Sacramento, Riverside and five other counties. Commissioners plan to vote on the draft resolution at their Aug. 22 meeting, the CPUC said Monday. The CPUC recommended grants to seven entities, including AT&T ($18.2 million), Frontier Communications ($22.9 million), the Golden State Connect Authority, ($10.2 million), Colorado River Indian Tribes ($14.8 million) and the city of Sacramento ($38.7 million). It’s the fourth in a series of resolutions approving CPUC federal funding account grants. Commissioners approved $88.5 million in awards from the same program at their July 11 meeting (see 2407110057).
The FCC should proceed with caution or reconsider entirely a proposal that imposes on the nine largest ISPs specific reporting requirements on their border gateway protocol (BGP) security practices, ISPs and industry groups said in comments posted through Thursday in docket 24-146 (see 2406060028). The Biden administration "supports properly implemented and narrowly constructed" BGP reporting requirements, NTIA said. "The FCC's action should be appropriately tailored to preserve the highly successful multistakeholder model of internet governance."
The global outage of Microsoft systems caused by a software update from cybersecurity company Crowdstrike grounded airplanes globally and affected some broadcasters and 911 systems but spared others, reports from multiple companies and state agencies said.
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.
Congressional GOP leaders demanded Thursday that the FCC and other independent agencies adhere strictly to its narrowed leeway of interpreting federal laws following the U.S. Supreme Court’s June Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo decision and other recent rulings that rein in federal agencies (see 2407080039). House Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington and Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer of Kentucky pressed the FCC, FTC and Commerce Department to understand the “limitations” Loper “set on your authority” given it overruled the Chevron doctrine. Meanwhile, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr pooh-poohed critics of Loper who argue it hamstrings regulatory agencies. Communications-focused lawyers at an Incompas event eyed a range of legal challenges to recent FCC actions that could face improved prospects because of Loper.
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.
States hope they can increase federal engagement on telecom no matter who is president in 2025, current and former state utility commissioners said in interviews. In a possible second Donald Trump presidency, “the states and localities are really going to be where broadband policy is made,” predicted Gigi Sohn, Benton Institute for Broadband & Society senior fellow. Some said there is a lot of uncertainty about how a Trump administration might change rules for state grants under NTIA’s $42.5 billion broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program.
Expect a Donald Trump White House and FCC to focus on deregulation and undoing the agency's net neutrality and digital discrimination rules, telecom policy experts and FCC watchers tell us. Brendan Carr, one of the two GOP minority commissioners, remains the seeming front-runner to head the agency if Trump wins the White House in November (see 2407120002). Despite repeated comments from Trump as a candidate and president calling for FCC action against companies such as CNN and MSNBC over their news content, many FCC watchers on both sides of the aisle told us they don’t expect the agency to actually act against cable networks or broadcast licenses under a second Trump administration.
Former President Donald Trump famously doesn't do policy detail, but this time around his senior advisers and self-described MAGA revolutionaries are doing it for him. Trump himself has repeatedly called for punishment of disfavored media, including FCC-licensed "fake news" outlets. But the specifics of the disruptions planned for policy and governance of telecom (along with many other sectors) are most explicitly framed in the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, the massive policy prescription directed in part by Trump's past and presumably future advisers and appointees. Among contributors is FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, author of the chapter on the future of the agency and telecom policy as a whole. In this Comm Daily Special Report, published on the eve of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, our award-winning editorial team looks at the ideas and the people that would transform telecom in America if Donald Trump is returned to office. (Our counterpart examination of Democratic plans -- whether under a reelected President Joe Biden or someone else -- will appear in August.)
The House Appropriations Committee voted 31-25 Wednesday to advance its Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Subcommittee FY 2025 funding bill without advance FY 2027 money for CPB after Democrats didn’t attempt to restore the allocation. The House Rules Committee, meanwhile, will consider filed amendments to Appropriations’ FY25 Financial Services Subcommittee bill (HR-8773) that aim to undo a ban on the FCC implementing an equity action plan and increase the FTC’s annual funding. The measure proposes boosting the FCC’s annual allocation to $416 million but includes riders barring the commission from implementing GOP-opposed net neutrality and digital discrimination orders (see 2406050067).