Simington Proposes Reassigning Media Bureau Staff, Reforming USF
FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington wants to reassign staff at the Media Bureau, “slash” the USF and streamline FCC licensing, he said in a column in The Daily Caller Friday, co-authored with new Chief of Staff Gavin Wax. The FCC “is a prime candidate for [Department of Government Efficiency]-style reform,” they said in the column.
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Simington and Wax said the Media Bureau is “significantly overstaffed,” despite overseeing “a sector that continues to contract in relevance.” It “has strayed into content regulation and competition policy, particularly in areas that arguably fall outside the FCC’s legal mandate.” Links in that section of the column don’t point to recent political content matters, such as the CBS news distortion proceeding, but instead to an FCC fact page on cable program rules and a page on competition policy for the Wireline Bureau. Simington's office told us that links in the column were inserted by The Daily Caller. “Disturbingly, there is credible evidence suggesting that enforcement is not politically neutral: right-leaning broadcasters appear to face disproportionately aggressive scrutiny compared to their left-of-center counterparts,” Simington wrote. Critics of the FCC’s recent actions against networks have said that the agency is challenging only those that are frequent Trump targets and not conservative-leaning Fox (see 2502130060).
Excess Media Bureau personnel should be reallocated to offices covering high-growth sectors, such as the Space Bureau, Simington and Wax said. The FCC should also cut USF costs by prioritizing automatic speech recognition for transcription in the Internet Protocol Captioned Telephone Service over the more expensive Communications Assistants, they said. “ASR has become highly accurate and cost-effective, while CA services remain slow, error-prone, and expensive.”
The agency should also reform USF to be technology-neutral and create automated workflows for non-controversial FCC licenses, Simington and Wax wrote. “This isn’t just a cost-saving measure; it’s a way to foster growth in sectors like spectrum, satellite, and wireless communications without compromising regulatory integrity." DOGE “isn’t a slogan. It’s a strategy,” they added. “President Trump has made clear that federal agencies must return to their constitutional lanes. That means cutting the fat, shedding unnecessary programs, and prioritizing service to the people -- not to entrenched bureaucracies.”