FCC Space Chief Spoke at Colorado Event After Commissioners Denied Official Travel
FCC Space Bureau Chief Jay Schwarz spoke Monday at the Space Foundation’s Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, two days after the FCC chairman’s office denied official travel requests from Commissioners Anna Gomez and Nathan Simington for the NAB Show in Las Vegas (see 2504040059). “Spoke at #40thSpaceSymposium about how the FCC’s Space Bureau has a bias for innovation under Chairman Brendan Carr and was happy explaining how the FCC will be reviewing outdated technical satellite rules so rural Americans can get great broadband,” Schwarz said in a LinkedIn post Tuesday. The FCC didn't respond to a request for comment on Schwarz's travel arrangements. Simington and Gomez also didn’t comment.
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Gomez self-funded her trip to Las Vegas and spoke at NAB on the same day that Schwarz addressed the Space Symposium. She said then her travel expenses were denied due to a White House order suspending nonessential travel for agencies (see 2504080036). That denial apparently came down late Friday, as Simington's office had said up until then that he would be attending the NAB Show. A Space Foundation spokesperson told us he wasn’t familiar with the specifics of Schwarz’s arrangements to attend the Space Symposium but pointed out that U.S. Space Force Staff Director Maj. Gen. Steven Whitney reportedly decreed that travel to the Space Symposium was “mission essential” for the agency’s staff after the White House issued its travel ban in February.