A proposal from FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington to fight “fake news” by capping fees that broadcast affiliates pay networks could include provisions protecting Fox, broadcast and FCC officials told us. Simington described the idea in a Thursday op-ed, co-written with Gavin Wax, his new chief of staff, and published in The National Pulse. President Donald Trump reposted the proposal Friday morning on Truth Social.
President Donald Trump's executive order late Thursday instructing CPB to cease funding NPR and PBS may not have an immediate effect on stations and will likely be challenged as part of CPB’s existing lawsuit, which disputes executive branch jurisdiction over the private corporation (see 2504290067), attorneys told us. Trump followed up on the order Friday, again proposing eliminating federal CPB funding as part of his FY 2026 discretionary budget request. Meanwhile, some pro-CPB congressional appropriators are warily eyeing Trump’s pending request that Capitol Hill claw back $1.1 billion in advance funding for the entity (see 2504150052).
The federal government wants the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to block a lower court injunction staying a White House executive order ending collective bargaining arrangements for employees at numerous agencies, including the FCC, IRS and Food and Drug Administration. The order removed collective bargaining rights at roughly 40 agencies on national security grounds, affecting two-thirds of the federal workforce. The injunction was issued last week after a legal challenge brought by the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents workers at the FCC. NTEU has said the order is an existential threat to the union (see 2504040037).
Broadcasters doubled down on calls for station ownership deregulation in reply comments filed by this week's deadline in the “Delete” docket (see also 2504290038), while public interest groups pushed back and cautioned the FCC not to skip required procedures in a rush to eliminate rules. Nexstar said that if the current ownership rules are retained, they will “doom television broadcasting.”
The FCC unanimously approved NPRMs on robocalls, satellite spectrum sharing and updated foreign-ownership rules at its April meeting Monday. The agency also unanimously approved an order on creating a licensing framework for the 37 GHz band (see 2504280032).
An FCC draft NPRM on a host of minor updates to the agency’s foreign-ownership rules for broadcasters and common carriers is expected to enjoy unanimous approval during the agency's open meeting Monday, FCC and industry officials told us.
FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez condemned the agency’s threats against broadcast networks and warned that a loss of its independence could hurt internationally. Gomez delivered remarks during a Center for Democracy & Technology event Thursday in Washington. It was the first stop on what Gomez called a “1st Amendment Tour” in a release earlier this week. “I'm embarking on a tour to talk about this administration's efforts of censor and control, because we need people to understand what's happening, and we need them to speak out,” she said Thursday. “We are in an alarming moment, and I am not someone who is generally alarmist.”
A loss of agency independence will ease the path for corruption and make it harder to address bipartisan issues such as privacy and increasing competition, said a trio of Democratic agency officials recently fired by the White House. For agencies like the FTC or Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, “if we are an arm of the administration, then instead of being a watchdog, we become a lap dog,” said fired PCLOB member and former FCC official Travis LeBlanc during a Center for American Progress panel discussion Wednesday.
The Center for American Rights (CAR) has filed a news distortion complaint at the FCC against CBS, NBC and ABC over their coverage of Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s deportation to El Salvador. CAR is the same entity behind the ongoing news distortion proceeding against CBS over a 60 Minutes interview. The complaint comes less than a week after FCC Chairman Brendan Carr posted a warning to NBC parent Comcast about its coverage of Garcia. “Comcast knows that federal law requires its licensed operations to serve the public interest. News distortion doesn’t cut it,” Carr wrote Wednesday.
The U.S. Office of Personnel Management has kicked off a rulemaking to bring back Schedule F under a new name and reclassify some federal employees to make them easier to fire, according to a fact sheet issued Friday by the White House. The change will allow agencies to “swiftly remove employees in policy-influencing roles for poor performance, misconduct, corruption, or subversion of Presidential directives, without lengthy procedural hurdles,” the fact sheet said. The National Treasury Employees Union -- which represents FCC staff -- didn’t comment Monday but filed a lawsuit in January over the executive order reviving Schedule F (see 2501220080).