Carr Briefs House Republicans on Upcoming Agenda, Including 'Reining in Big Tech'
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).
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Carr said after the RSC’s lunch meeting his presentation to GOP lawmakers covered “the waterfront on everything that we're doing at the FCC” since he became chairman Jan. 20, from “reining in Big Tech to looking at some of the media regulations and all sorts of economic agenda” matters. “We're working on spectrum,” he said. “We're working on permitting reform. We've talked a lot about what we're doing on the space economy to accelerate that. We're doing a lot of work that's sort of behind the scenes that people haven't seen yet, and national security as well.” Carr’s briefing took place a day before the FCC’s first meeting of his chairmanship (see 2502050057).
RSC Chairman Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, gave a similarly vague description of Carr’s presentation. The FCC chairman was “talking about all the different things that were happening” when Rosenworcel was chair and how he's “trying to get resolution” to reverse those actions, Pfluger said.
Carr didn’t detail whether he gave lawmakers visibility into a string of investigations against U.S. broadcasters (see 2502130060). RSC leaders played a video -- which one lawmaker who participated in the meeting described as a “hype video” -- before Carr spoke that featured clips of broadcast content during the 2024 presidential election that now-President Donald Trump objected to during the campaign. The video included clips from CBS' October 60 Minutes interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, which is the focus of an ongoing FCC news distortion probe (see 2502070067) and a suit by Trump.
The RSC meeting participant said Carr mentioned the FCC’s 3-2 September decision that granted radio broadcaster Audacy’s request for a temporary waiver of foreign-ownership requirements to complete a bankruptcy restructuring that included George Soros-affiliated entities purchasing its stock (see 2409300046). The Audacy order drew strong congressional GOP opposition in the lead-up to the November presidential election, including a House Oversight Committee probe (see 2409270053).
Carr praised the Trump-initiated Department of Government Efficiency advisory group, telling reporters he’s “excited about” how it can impact commission operations. “There's a tremendous amount of efficiencies that we can drive out of the agency,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of contracts we’ve got to look through.” The FCC is also “bringing people back” to its headquarters, Carr said: “Return to work is going well. We had two or three times the number of employees in the building on a daily basis this past week, as compared to a while ago.”
House Communications Subcommittee member Jennifer McClellan, D-Va., during the House Commerce session Tuesday night criticized Carr's moves so far. She said her defeated amendment to the panel's FCC oversight plan was needed to ensure lawmakers examine FCC actions, like the broadcasting probes, that some consider censorship. Carr is seeking to “undermine press freedom by reviving rightfully dismissed cases against ABC, CBS and NBC without new evidence, targeting public broadcasters with baseless allegations” and “threatening to revoke broadcast licenses based on the content of the newscast,” McClellan said.
Carr’s “actions are not only an abuse of power,” McClellan said. “They are an affront to the First Amendment, and they also fall well outside of the FCC jurisdiction.” The actions “directly violate the Communications Act, which explicitly prohibits the FCC from censoring broadcast material or interfering with free expression,” she said: “I’ve heard” Republicans “in the past lament threats to local broadcasting, rail against government censorship, express outrage over the idea that the federal government could interfere in a private entity's business decisions. Yet here we have all the above with the Trump administration.”
Pfluger questioned during the House Commerce meeting whether McClellan would have supported the panel conducting oversight on censorship concerns last year during the Biden administration or if she would back an investigation of the 60 Minutes interview. “I’m proud that [Carr] is looking into these things,” Pfluger said: “The First Amendment extends into this world of suppression.”