Three House Commerce Committee Democratic leaders pressed NTIA Administrator Arielle Roth on Tuesday to follow “the letter” of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act as the agency rolls out funding from the $42.5 billion BEAD program, citing “significant concerns” about the Trump administration's implementation of the initiative. They in part objected to President Donald Trump's draft proposal to require NTIA to potentially curtail non-deployment BEAD funding for states that the administration determines have AI laws that are overly burdensome (see 2511200057).
The White House is pausing plans for President Donald Trump to finalize a draft executive order that would direct NTIA to potentially curtail non-deployment funding from the $42.5 billion BEAD program for states that the administration determines to have AI laws that are overly burdensome (see 2511190069), lobbyists told us. The Trump administration had appeared ready to formally issue the order Friday but was aware of renewed interest among some congressional Republicans in pursuing a legislative preemption of states’ AI laws. The White House didn't comment.
FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez and top Democrats on the House and Senate Communications subcommittees raised concerns Wednesday night and Thursday about a draft executive order that would direct NTIA to potentially curtail non-deployment BEAD funding for states that the Trump administration determines have AI laws that are overly burdensome (see 2511190069). Gomez questioned the legality of a provision in the draft order directing the FCC to consider adopting a national standard for AI models that preempts state laws.
The White House took a swipe at ABC again Wednesday, just a day after President Donald Trump called for the FCC to revoke the network’s broadcast license during a press conference with Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Trump responded to a question Tuesday from ABC News White House correspondent Mary Bruce by saying Carr “should look at” taking away the network’s license “because your news is so fake and so wrong” (see 2511180045).
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., was noncommittal Wednesday about the House's bill (HR-6019) to repeal language in the package to end the recent government shutdown that allows senators to sue federal agencies for accessing their phone records without notice. That measure appeared likely to pass the House on Wednesday night amid lawmakers’ complaints that the lawsuit language applies only to senators (see 2511130050). Thune added the provision to the shutdown bill following reports that the FBI and former Special Counsel Jack Smith accessed phone records of several Republicans without notice as part of the Arctic Frost probe of the Jan. 6 Capitol siege (see 2510170039).
Senate Consumer Protection Subcommittee Chair Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Communications Subcommittee ranking member Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., filed an upper chamber companion Thursday to the House Communications Subcommittee-cleared Broadband and Telecommunications Rail Act (HR-6046), Blackburn’s office told us Thursday night.
The House Communications Subcommittee on Tuesday advanced a new version of the American Broadband Deployment Act (HR-2289) that combined language from 22 GOP-led connectivity permitting bills originally slated for the markup session (see 2511170048). However, the subpanel’s party-line 16-12 vote on the package reflected Democrats’ ongoing opposition. The House Commerce Committee during the last Congress similarly divided along party lines on a previous version of the broadband package, which never reached the floor amid strong Democratic resistance (see 2305230067).
A draft White House executive order that was circulating Wednesday night would resurrect a scuttled legislative bid to preempt nonfederal AI laws by making states ineligible for some allocated funding from the $42.5 billion BEAD program if they passed their own AI measures. The draft EO would require NTIA to issue a policy notice within 90 days “specifying the conditions under which States may be eligible for remaining [BEAD funding] that was saved through my Administration’s ‘Benefit of the Bargain’ reforms,” more commonly known as non-deployment funds estimated to total $20 billion.
The House Communications Subcommittee plans a markup session Tuesday on a set of 28 largely GOP-led broadband permitting bills, the Commerce Committee said Friday night. House Communications members traded partisan barbs during a September hearing on the measures, with Democrats saying that most of them were unlikely to be effective in speeding up connectivity buildout (see 2509180069). Tuesday's meeting will begin at 10:15 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn.
The FCC began to restart operations Thursday that were suspended during the government shutdown (see 2509300060) but immediately extended most post-shutdown deadlines in a bid to control the anticipated avalanche of filings. The agency furloughed 81% of its staff when the shutdown began Oct. 1 (see 2510010065). FCC staff and industry attorneys had raised alarms about what they saw as unclear filing requirements (see 2510160044). The 42-day shutdown, the longest in modern U.S. history, ended late Wednesday night when President Donald Trump signed a legislative package that restored federal appropriations at FY 2025 levels through Jan. 30.