Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Commerce Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Communications Subcommittee ranking member Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., pressed the Trump administration Friday to immediately release the $42.5 billion Congress allocated to NTIA’s BEAD program. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in March began a “rigorous review” of BEAD aimed at revamping the program (see 2503050067). Meanwhile, National Lifeline Association Chairman David Dorwart marked the one-year anniversary of the formal lapse of the FCC’s affordable connectivity program (see 2405310070).
Senate leaders may still try to hold votes on Republican FCC nominee Olivia Trusty and NTIA administrator nominee Arielle Roth in late June, shortly before the upper chamber breaks for the week leading up to the July Fourth holiday, but lobbyists now believe both confirmations are more likely to happen in the lead-up to the August recess. Lobbyists told us that Democratic FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks’ pledge last week to resign before the agency's June 26 meeting (see 2505220043) is easing Republicans’ pressure to expedite Trusty’s confirmation because the GOP will gain a majority even without her taking office.
A White House OMB spokesperson confirmed Wednesday that President Donald Trump will send Congress a promised $9.4 billion rescissions package next week, seeking to claw back about $1.1 billion in advance CPB funding (see 2504150052). Since January, congressional Republicans have shown growing interest in ending federal funding for public broadcasters amid rancor over what they say is pro-Democratic bias in news coverage (see 2502030064). NPR sued the Trump administration Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to block a White House executive order cutting funding for NPR and PBS (see 2505270047).
Senate Armed Services Committee member Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., is threatening to block Senate passage of its budget reconciliation package if Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and others include spectrum legislative language that doesn’t exempt the 3.1-3.45 GHz and 7 GHz bands from potential reallocation for commercial use. Rounds’ declaration Wednesday night created another potential roadblock for spectrum legislation to make it into a negotiated reconciliation deal, even as House GOP leaders celebrated the lower chamber's narrow passage Thursday morning of their One Big Beautiful Bill Act (HR-1). That measure's spectrum title would restore the FCC’s lapsed auction authority through Sept. 30, 2034, and exempts the lower 3 GHz and 5.9-7.1 (6) GHz bands from reallocation.
Democratic FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks’ announcement Thursday that he was attending his last commission meeting (see 2505220013) sparked renewed concerns from his supporters on and off Capitol Hill that President Donald Trump will leave his seat vacant instead of naming a party-affiliated successor. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights led another push just before Starks’ announcement for Senate leaders to delay Republican FCC nominee Olivia Trusty’s confirmation process until the Trump administration commits to keeping the commission staffed with two members not affiliated with the party of the sitting president.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr faced pushback Wednesday from Democrats on the House Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee about the legality of the commission’s pressure campaign against communications sector companies’ diversity, equity and inclusion programs and over the agency’s workforce reductions. Subpanel Republicans spun in favor of the FCC’s efficiency and highlighted other actions the commission has taken since Carr became chairman Jan. 20.
House Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, offered positive but different interpretations of President Donald Trump’s apparent endorsement Tuesday (see 2505200058) of the spectrum language cleared in the lower chamber's One Big Beautiful Bill Act budget reconciliation package (HR-1). The two leaders were vague about whether Trump’s statement makes it more difficult for Cruz and other senators to press for potential changes to the spectrum proposal (see 2505130059). Meanwhile, the House Rules Committee was still debating Wednesday afternoon plans for bringing HR-1 to the floor.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is defending cuts to the agency’s workforce and other actions in written testimony ahead of the House Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee’s planned Wednesday hearing on commission oversight. Carr also urges Congress again to restore the FCC’s lapsed auction authority, as House GOP leaders aimed to pass, as soon as Wednesday night, their One Big Beautiful Bill Act budget reconciliation package with spectrum language included. The House Appropriations Financial Services hearing will begin at 10 a.m. in 2358-A Rayburn.
Senate Communications Subcommittee Chair Deb Fischer, R-Neb., doubled down Thursday on her opposition to the House Commerce Committee’s budget reconciliation package spectrum language (see 2505120058), saying it didn’t adequately protect DOD-controlled bands. House Commerce voted Wednesday to advance the measure, which would restore the FCC’s lapsed auction authority through FY 2034 and mandate the commission auction 600 MHz within six years (see 2505140062).
House Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., told us Tuesday night that he doesn’t see it as a setback that several Senate Commerce Committee Republicans want to pursue alternatives to parts of the House panel’s budget reconciliation package spectrum proposal (see 2505120058), even as some congressional DOD supporters raised their own objections to the measure. House Commerce cleared its spectrum and AI reconciliation language early Wednesday on a party-line, 29-24 vote after Democrats unsuccessfully floated a handful of amendments that reflected their objection to using future FCC auction proceeds as an offset for extending the 2017 tax cuts and other GOP priorities.