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.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' decision calling a $57 million FCC fine against AT&T unconstitutional (see 2504180021) means a lower risk going forward of the agency imposing fines and forfeitures against parties found violating agency rules, Venable communications lawyer Craig Gilley wrote Tuesday. He said agency Chairman Brendan Carr and Commissioner Nathan Simington were already skeptical of enforcement actions that could result in the imposition of forfeitures. Gilley said the 5th Circuit decision also will further bolster arguments that the U.S. Supreme Court's Jarkesy decision has wide application to all agency monetary punishments imposed without a jury trial, not just those imposed by the SEC -- a party in Jarkesy --- or the FCC. The 5th Circuit decision reinforces that federal agencies imposing fines or other monetary penalties have to give their targets access to a jury trial and an Article III decision-maker, such as a judge, he said.

NTIA has given all states and territories 90 additional days to submit their final BEAD proposals, the Colorado Broadband Office said Tuesday. NTIA originally set a 12-month deadline for submitting final proposals, with the clock starting after the initial proposal is approved. In its waiver announcement, the Commerce Department said the additional time is "to implement the forthcoming programmatic improvements" to BEAD. West Virginia and Maine have both paused their BEAD processes in anticipation of program changes that are expected from NTIA and Commerce (see 2504180003).

The FCC International Bureau on Monday sought comment on various proposals for U.S. positions approved by the commission’s World Radiocommunication Conference Advisory Committee last week (see 2504150032). The bureau also sought comment on an NTIA recommendation on agenda item 1.8, another topic at the meeting, addressing additional spectrum allocations to the radiolocation service. Comments, which are due April 30 in docket 24-30, “will assist the Commission in its upcoming consultations with the U.S. Department of State and NTIA in the development of U.S. positions" for the next WRC in 2027.

The American Federation of Government Employees condemned reported White House plans to revive Schedule F reclassification of civil servants. President Trump’s administration is planning to resurrect Schedule F under a new name, Schedule Policy/Career, Axios reported Friday. The rule change would strip numerous federal employees from civil service protections against termination, making them easier to fire at will. “President Trump’s action to politicize the work of tens of thousands of career federal employees will erode the government’s merit-based hiring system and undermine the professional civil service that Americans rely on,” said AFGE National President Everett Kelley in a release. “This is another in a series of deliberate moves by this administration to corrupt the federal government and replace qualified public servants with political cronies.”

The FCC is granting some official travel requests, Commissioner Nathan Simington’s office told us Thursday. A pause on official travel led to Simington’s last-minute cancellation of plans to speak at the NAB Show 2025 in Las Vegas earlier this month. Commissioner Anna Gomez paid her own way to attend (see 2504080036). Simington is set to go to Boston to speak Saturday at the Harvard Business School Infrastructure Summit. His staff said the FCC chairman’s office approved the trip, and they were told FCC employees could now travel to events. Gomez’s office told us Thursday that it was unaware travel was again being approved and that she had also self-funded a visit to Philadelphia last week (see 2504160046). FCC Space Bureau Chief Jay Schwarz traveled to Colorado Springs to speak at the Space Foundation’s Space Symposium the same day Gomez spoke at the NAB event, but it wasn’t clear if the FCC paid for his trip (see 2504100038). The agency didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Google has willfully acquired and maintained monopoly power over online ads in violation of antitrust measures, ruled a U.S. District Court Judge in the Eastern District of Virginia on Thursday.

The FCC is making available an extra $3.08 billion for carriers to remove Chinese gear from their networks under the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program, a notice in Wednesday’s Daily Digest said. Congress approved the funding last year, to be paid for through the upcoming AWS-3 reauction. The Wireline Bureau notice said the Treasury Department transferred the money to the FCC to fully fund the rip-and-replace program.