A journalist and public interest group have sued the FCC in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to compel the agency to release records related to the Department of Government Efficiency. Nina Burleigh, a contributor to The New Republic and The New York Times, and Frequency Forward jointly asked the court to require the FCC to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request for records on DOGE’s activities at the agency. The FCC hasn’t answered the March 4 request, the complaint said, even though a response was due March 24. DOGE’s efforts could create a conflict of interest because FCC regulatee Starlink and DOGE are controlled by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, the complaint said. Starlink has requested Rural Digital Opportunity Fund dollars, and information accessed by DOGE could give Musk an unfair advantage, it said. “No apparent effort has been made to segregate Musk from the FCC’s decision-making process.” Frequency Forward is a newly created group based out of the office of Smithwick & Belendiuk, which is representing the group in both the FOIA matter and a recent petition against Sinclair (see 2504150056).

Former FCC Chairmen Tom Wheeler and Al Sikes blasted the Trump administration in a Newsweek op-ed for upending 90 years of precedent in only two months and turning the agency into “a blatantly partisan tool.” Wheeler, a Democrat, and Sikes, a Republican, faulted FCC Chairman Brendan Carr for attacking free speech and President Donald Trump for eliminating the FCC’s independence. Carr has said protection of the public interest is the rationale behind his attacks on broadcast networks and others but hasn’t defined the term, they said. “Using vague government policy as a tool of political coercion is a tactic historically associated with authoritarian regimes.” Carr has also said he would hold a proceeding to clarify the meaning of public interest, but “to his discredit, he has yet to follow through,” the chairmen said. “Instead, he has commenced investigations into supposed violations of a standard whose details only he knows.” It's “now up to Chairman Carr to prevent such abuse by clearly defining his construction of the public interest standard and its relationship to the First Amendment," the chairmen wrote. The FCC didn't comment.

The FCC needs to do more to ensure that its broadband map data is complete, accurate and reliable, and federal agencies broadly need to work together better to prevent duplication of their broadband program efforts, according to the Government Accountability Office. In a report Monday, the GAO called the accuracy of FCC broadband map data "uncertain" and said the agency must document or assess whether it does enough to ensure accuracy. It gave the FCC, NTIA, Department of Agriculture and Treasury Department -- which administer the bulk of federal broadband deployment funding -- a mixed report card for their coordination efforts with one another. There's more to be done among those agencies in such areas as defining common outcomes, clarifying roles and responsibilities, and bridging organizational cultures, the report said. They need to define their collaborations more clearly and document a formal process for avoiding duplicate funding, it added. The FCC didn't comment.

Democratic FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez said Monday she's “not worried” about the possibility that President Donald Trump may fire her amid concerns it could happen if the Senate confirms Republican commission nominee Olivia Trusty. Senate approval of Trusty would give Republicans an outright majority at the FCC. As such, the commission would have a mandated three-member quorum without Gomez and fellow Democratic Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, who plans to retire this spring (see 2503180067). The Senate Commerce Committee is set to vote Wednesday on advancing Trusty to the full chamber (see 2504230051).

Several changes are likely to be included in the 37 GHz order and Further NPRM set for a commission vote Monday, industry and FCC officials said. Limited changes are possible to the proposed robocall NPRM, which seeks to close a gap in the commission’s Stir/Shaken authentication rules. Both items are expected to be approved by a unanimous vote.

Given ever-accelerating consumer internet usage, particularly via Wi-Fi, policymakers mustn't "get too infatuated with fixed, exclusive wireless spectrum," NCTA President Michael Powell said last week in a video discussion with David Don, Comcast's senior vice president-public policy. There's a far greater need for unlicensed spectrum, he said. A particular challenge is showing regulators that Wi-Fi "is something like a garden you have to continue to fertilize and grow," especially since the average of 17 devices on home Wi-Fi networks will multiply in five to 10 years. Powell said DOD uses most of the high-quality spectrum that interests commercial markets and thus can't be repurposed solely for commercial use. Dynamic spectrum-sharing technology is the obvious route to avoid repeated fights between DOD and the commercial sector, he added.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce told the FCC it hopes the agency is aggressive in cutting regulations, starting with broadband labels, in reply comments Friday in the “Delete, Delete, Delete” docket (25-133). In initial comments, “the Chamber offered forty-two areas of regulatory reforms that broadly would modernize media and video regulations, ensure fairness and due process in enforcement, connect all Americans, rein in abuse of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, reform the equipment authorization process, and unleash the space economy,” the filing said (see 2504150016). The record shows “significant support for these areas of reform.”

If federal regulatory agencies implement the White House's April 9 presidential memo direction and repeal regulations without obtaining public input (see 2504100067), "litigation is virtually assured," Pillsbury lawyers Reza Zarghamee, Amanda Halter and Jillian Marullo wrote Wednesday. They said the directive relies on the Administrative Procedure Act's "good cause" exception to obtaining public input. Litigation challenging the memo and any deregulation stemming from it might not proceed uniformly, since there's a lack of consensus among federal courts on how to evaluate good-cause claims, they said. The divergence among various federal circuit courts raises the risk of inconsistent outcomes, they added. If multiple challenges are filed to the same regulatory appeal in multiple circuits, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation may consolidate them, and it could assign the matter to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where de novo review would apply.

Digital Progress Institute President Joel Thayer said Tuesday he has decided against joining the office of FTC Commissioner Mark Meador as chief of staff (see 2504160020). “After giving it deep thought, engaging in conversations with the Commissioner, and, most importantly, consulting with my family, I have decided to remain as president” of the institute, Thayer said on LinkedIn. “Even though I will not be in the office, I will continue to support his and the Trump Administration's agenda to rein in #BigTech, promote issues that help American families, and advance a true free market.”

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez will hold a series of speaking engagements and listening sessions on First Amendment protections and “fighting back against this Administration’s ongoing campaign of censorship and control,” she said in a news release Tuesday. The first event will be a virtual panel discussion at 2 p.m. ET Thursday. It will be hosted by the Center for Democracy & Technology and include speakers from Engine, Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute, and the University of Maryland. “These events will provide a forum where Commissioner Gomez can engage with stakeholders and the public on the various ways the FCC is being weaponized to attack freedom of speech in the media and telecommunications sector,” the release said. “Since the founding of our country, the First Amendment has protected our fundamental right to speak freely and hold power to account. Today, the greatest threat to that freedom is coming from our own government,” Gomez said in the release. The FCC didn’t comment.