The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has extended a temporary restraining order barring the federal government from enforcing a March 25 executive order targeting Jenner & Block, said an order Tuesday. That executive order revoked the firm’s security clearances and barred it from conducting business with the government. Tuesday’s court order extends the temporary restraining order until final judgment in the case. The White House has issued similar orders against Perkins Coie, WilmerHale and others (see 2503120049), and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has targeted Cooley and numerous other law firms over diversity programs (see 2503180055).

Consumers’ Research has filed another challenge to the legality of the FCC’s USF contribution factor, this time for Q2 of this year, at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The group chose what's likely the friendliest circuit for an appeal; the U.S. Supreme Court is currently considering an appeal of a 5th Circuit en banc decision last summer, which found that the USF contribution factor is a "misbegotten tax.” Justices heard oral arguments in that case last week (see 2503260061).

The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents FCC staff, has sued President Donald Trump, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr and the leaders of numerous other federal agencies over Thursday’s executive order ending collective bargaining for many federal employees (see 2503280044). Under that order, federal agencies will cease recognizing NTEU as representatives for their employees and will stop the payroll deductions federal workers have requested to pay their union dues, “cutting off more than half of NTEU’s revenue stream,” the group said in the complaint, filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (docket 1:25-cv-00935). The order eliminates union rights “for two-thirds of the entire federal workforce” and “is in direct conflict” with laws passed by Congress to facilitate collective bargaining for federal workers, NTEU said in a news release Monday. The national security exemptions to the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act cited in the order have never before been used to deny entire Cabinet-level agencies collective bargaining rights, “only discrete offices within agencies that clearly perform primarily security or intelligence work,” NTEU said. “NTEU-represented employees at FCC do not primarily perform security, investigative, or intelligence work,” it said. “They review and act on license applications for radio, enforce FCC rules regarding construction and operation of communications systems, and respond to consumer inquiries.” The FCC didn’t comment. NTEU has represented FCC employees since 1978. Their current collective bargaining agreement took effect in March 2023 and wasn’t set to expire until March 2030.

Bobby Barker’s retirement from the FCC was not pursuant to the Voluntary Early Retirement Authority policy (see 2503270063).

Consumers' Research Executive Director Will Hild expressed confidence after the U.S. Supreme Court heard the group’s challenge of the USF contribution factor in lengthy oral arguments Wednesday (see 2503260061).

There were no surprises during U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments Wednesday on the Consumers’ Research challenge to the constitutionality of the USF contribution factor, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said Thursday following the commission's open meeting. Most observers saw SCOTUS as unlikely to issue a ruling that would imperil the USF program (see 2503260061). “I got a high-level briefing from some of our team that attended it,” Carr said. “The read that I got is it went really well for the U.S. government’s position.” He added, “You never know when you’re reading tea leaves from an oral argument,” but “the net consensus was that it was good day” for the USF.

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez defended the USF program during a Capitol Hill news conference Wednesday before the U.S. Supreme Court argument in FCC v. Consumers’ Research (see 2503260061).

Jenner & Block on Tuesday became the latest major law firm to run afoul of President Donald Trump, who issued an executive order instructing his administration to review federal contracts with the firm and security clearances of its lawyers. Jenner previously employed Andrew Weissmann, a Trump critic and former federal prosecutor who worked on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Trump in his first presidency. Jenner “is yet another law firm that has abandoned the profession's highest ideals, condoned partisan ‘lawfare,’ and abused its pro bono practice to engage in activities that undermine justice and the interests of the United States,” the order said. The firm has an active communications practice.

BEAD's pivot toward supposed tech neutrality is concerning if it treats alternatives to fiber such as low earth orbit satellites or fixed wireless as interchangeable with fiber, New America blogged Monday. LEO and fixed wireless have lower upfront deployment costs than fiber, but a fiber connection has vastly more capacity than LEO and a useful life of dozens of years, it said. Fiber might be more expensive upfront, but it could save replacement later, New America said, adding states must ensure that plans for universal access will be viable long-term solutions, it added. There also is a trade-off between fiber and LEO on service quality, New America said: SpaceX's Starlink service intermittently meets 100/20 Mbps speeds, while fiber capacity is more likely to be sufficient in the future, even given growing consumer bandwidth needs.

The government has “no business” forcing companies to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion programs, said FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez in a speech Tuesday to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce's Legislative Summit. “The hard-fought lessons of the civil rights movement are being erased -- or worse, distorted -- to claim that fairness for all requires discrimination against some. That could not be further from the truth.”