Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, lifted his hold on final Senate consideration of David Redl’s nomination as NTIA administrator, Cruz’s office said Monday. Cruz’s longstanding concerns about Redl’s position on the 2016 Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition prompted several delays of a Senate Commerce Committee vote on Redl. Cruz placed a hold on Senate action after the committee advanced Redl earlier this month on a voice vote.
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President Donald Trump is expected to nominate soon candidates to the three vacant FTC commissioner seats. They are former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Assistant Director Rohit Chopra; Noah Phillips, chief counsel to Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas; and Paul Weiss antitrust lawyer Joseph Simons, a White House spokeswoman told us. Trump would designate Simons as FTC chairman if the Senate confirms him, the spokeswoman said.
IATF Allocates $1 Billion of Reimbursement; Costs to be Lower; Many Legislators Seek No Repack Delay
The FCC Incentive Auction Task Force will allow mostly broadcasters and some MVPDs to draw initially on $1 billion of the $1.75 billion repacking reimbursement fund, the IATF announced. That’s less than was requested by NAB, Ion and public TV groups. But the estimated cost of the repacking dropped from $2.12 billion to $1.86 billion, IATF said, a number likely to keep changing as repacking progresses. A smaller shortfall would make it more likely that Congress will authorize more funds to make up the gap, broadcast industry officials said.
Jessica Rosenworcel in her first policy speech since rejoining the FCC as a member Aug. 11 expressed concerns Thursday on Sinclair's buy of Tribune Media, the transition by TV stations to ATSC 3.0 and her agency's course on net neutrality. "I am concerned the Commission is gearing up to approve a transaction that will hand a single broadcast company the unprecedented ability to reach more than 70 percent of American households," she said of the deal worth about $4 billion. She called current 3.0 plans "not a great boon for consumers, it’s a tax on every household" with a TV.
President Donald Trump asking his 40 million-plus Twitter followers about challenging NBC's "license" drew quick criticism Wednesday morning from Democrats at the FCC and on Capitol Hill. The company owns several FCC-licensed TV stations.
The Senate Commerce Committee cleared NTIA administrator nominee David Redl Wednesday on a voice vote.
The Senate confirmed FCC Chairman Ajit Pai for another term Monday, as expected. Pai's new term lasts until June 30, 2021. Votes were continuing at our deadline, but late Monday afternoon he reached the threshold needed.
AT&T asked the Supreme Court to review an appellate court's affirmation of the FCC's 2015 net neutrality order under Communications Act Title II. It challenged the commission's authority to reclassify fixed and mobile broadband internet access service as Title II telecom services, and to reclassify mobile broadband internet access service as a "commercial mobile service," both subject to common carrier regulation. "In 2015, acquiescing to unprecedented White House pressure, the FCC repudiated its prior interpretation and subjected Internet access service to extensive common carrier regulation," said an AT&T cert petition in AT&T v. FCC, appealing the rulings of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (USTelecom v. FCC).
The FCC reasonably looked at precedent when it decided Dish Network held "a disqualifying degree of de facto control" over designated entities SNR and Northstar in the AWS-3 auction, but it didn't give those DEs enough notice that if their Dish relationships cost them their auction bidding credits they would also be denied an opportunity to cure, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled Tuesday. Judges Janice Brown, Cornelia Pillard and Stephen Williams, in a docket 15-1330 decision (in Pacer) inked by Pillard, remanded the SNR appeal to the FCC, giving the DEs a chance to negotiate a solution for that de facto control.
No law stops Louisville from requiring one-touch, make-ready on utility poles, a district court ruled in a first-of-its class opinion. A Wednesday opinion (in Pacer) rejected an AT&T lawsuit against the city over a policy to make room for new internet infrastructure on utility poles.