Carr Sending DEI Letter to Disney, Aiming to Delete 'Top 300' Rules
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is planning to warn Disney that the FCC will be scrutinizing its diversity programs, he said in an interview Tuesday with Punchbowl News.
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“I’m working on potentially another letter here to Disney and ABC on some of their [diversity, equity and inclusion] and [equal employment opportunity] practices.” Comcast and Verizon have received similar letters (see 2503210049). Carr said in the interview that he initially targeted Comcast “in part because Comcast has a lot of different operations, from cable to broadcast and internet. So I thought that'd be a good one to give us sort of a broad vision into DEI- and EEO-related issues.” Critics have accused Carr of targeting Comcast because it's often the focus of complaints from President Donald Trump.
Carr said his FCC is moving “back to even-handed treatment” after an era of “extreme weaponization of the FCC.” He cited as examples the previous FCC’s actions against Starlink and approval by the FCC majority of a temporary waiver of foreign ownership rules for Audacy’s KCBS San Francisco. Though Carr called it unprecedented, the proceeding mimicked a number of similar grants that the FCC handed out on delegated authority under Republican and Democratic leadership. “I’m cognizant that if you were benefiting from that two-tier system of justice that the FCC was pushing the last couple of years, this even-handed treatment may feel to you to be discriminatory, but that doesn't make it so," he said Tuesday.
The president does have the authority to remove FCC commissioners, Carr said in the interview, “whether they're in the majority or the minority,” adding that he hasn't discussed firing opposition commissioners with the White House. Carr echoed that position Tuesday at the Free State Foundation conference (see 2503250049).
Asked about the “top three” rules he will target in the FCC’s “In Re: Delete, Delete, Delete” proceeding, Carr said a “top 300” would be a better way to frame it. He pushed back on criticism that his claims of FCC authority over tech companies and streaming services run counter to the thrust of the Delete proceeding. “They're trying to put everything in a very binary category of, are you a regulatory person, or are you a deregulatory person,” Carr said, explaining that his FCC will do both. “We're just trying to make telecom policy great again.”