NTIA Administrator Arielle Roth said she joined Senate Public Works Committee Chair Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., and others at a meeting Thursday in White Sulphur Springs on connectivity issues in West Virginia. Roth noted the Commerce Department’s review of states’ resubmitted plans for spending their funding from the $42.5 billion BEAD program. “After years of delays by the Biden administration, NTIA is proud to be moving forward on the BEAD program and delivering the ‘Benefit of the Bargain’ for Americans,” Roth said.

The House plans to vote as soon as Tuesday night on the Undersea Cable Control Act (HR-2503) under suspension of the rules. The measure would require the State Department to develop a strategy to block China and other “foreign adversaries” from buying goods and technologies to build, maintain or operate undersea cables. The House passed a similar version of the measure during the last Congress (see 2303280060).

The House Appropriations Committee said Thursday night that it plans to vote Wednesday on the Financial Services Subcommittee’s FY 2026 funding bill, which proposes to maintain the FCC’s annual funding at $390.2 million (see 2507210064). Financial Services advanced the measure in June with a set of riders that would bar the agency from using money to enforce certain policies that originated during the Biden administration and have been in Republicans’ crosshairs, including its 2024 digital discrimination order (see 2507220057). The markup session will begin at 10:30 a.m. in 2359 Rayburn.

Rep. April McClain Delaney of Maryland and nine other House Democrats pressed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and NTIA Administrator Arielle Roth this week to give states more “clarity” about how the agency's June 6 policy restructuring notice for the $42.5 billion BEAD program affects how they can spend grants on non-broadband deployment projects (see 2506060052). “We urge NTIA to issue formal clarification elucidating how States may use remaining BEAD funds [on] parallel investments in the foundational non-deployment activities that enable effective implementation and adoption,” said McClain Delaney, a former deputy NTIA administrator during the Biden administration, and her colleagues in a Monday letter to Lutnick and Roth. They want a response by Tuesday.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is pushing back against a probe by Senate Homeland Security Investigations Subcommittee ranking member Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., of the federal government’s review of Skydance's $8 billion purchase of Paramount Global (see 2507290066). Other congressional Democrats have also made corruption claims about the FCC’s July approval of the deal, in part citing Paramount’s settlement of President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against CBS over its editing of an October 2024 interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris (see 2507250029).

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr needs to clarify the FCC’s conditions for the Skydance/Paramount deal and be transparent about any role President Donald Trump played in influencing the FCC’s decision, said Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., in a letter to Carr Monday. Paramount Global’s settlement of a private suit by Trump followed days later by the FCC approving Skydance's acquisition of Paramount “raises significant questions and alarm” that the agency “has become a vehicle for President Trump to exact personal retribution and undermine the freedom of the press,” said the letter. “The FCC’s recent actions are especially troubling considering President Trump’s history of disparaging the press and undermining the protections afforded to them by the Constitution,” Schiff wrote. “In a blatant example of Trump’s political interference in the FCC’s regulatory review, the President boasted on Truth Social about his ‘BIG AND IMPORTANT WIN’ against Paramount just two days before the Commission’s approval of the company’s merger with Skydance,” the letter said. Schiff gave Carr until Monday to answer questions about the president’s involvement in the transaction's approval, promises made by Skydance (see 2507220070), and the FCC’s insulation from “external political pressure.”

Lawmakers need to “act swiftly” to prevent the expiration of Medicare telehealth services in September or risk a “telehealth shutdown” on Oct.1, said the American Telemedicine Association and more than 350 health-care organizations, providers and universities in a letter and news release Thursday. The letter was sent to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.; House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.; House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.; and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. Congress should act to make Medicare telehealth flexibilities permanent or at least issue a two-year extension for them, the letter said. “We write today to request your leadership in ensuring Medicare beneficiaries are able to access the same telehealth services that they have been relying on for the past five years,” the letter said. “Telehealth is a strongly supported, bipartisan issue. It is crucial that both the House and Senate pass permanent or long-term telehealth provisions to ensure stable access to health care services.”

Twenty-three Democratic members of the House slammed an FCC Wireline Bureau order that delays until April 1, 2027, the implementation of rules curbing the costs of incarcerated people’s communications service (IPCS). In a letter to Chairman Brendan Carr, they asked for an explanation (see 2507030024), given the Jan. 5 deadline for rules written into the Martha Wright-Reed Act. The delay “will have immediate and devastating consequences for our constituents,” said the lawmakers, led by Rep. Nanette Barragan, D-Calif.

House Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., on Friday praised the FCC's adoption Thursday of its undersea cable order and accompanying Further NPRM (see 2508070037). The order aimed to simplify the approval process and address national security risks. “Subsea cables underpin the overwhelming majority of international internet traffic, and [the FCC's] unanimous decision protects that critical infrastructure from interference by our foreign adversaries,” Guthrie said. “Continued investment and streamlining our approval processes for submarine cable infrastructure will enhance the resiliency of these critical networks and enable the [U.S.] to expand our global technological dominance.” The U.S. “must defend against our adversaries, such as China, who seek to access and tamper with American networks.”

Senate Consumer Protection Subcommittee Chair Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said Wednesday she will seek her party's nomination next year to become Tennessee governor. President Donald Trump "is back [for a second term], America is blessed and Tennessee -- better than ever,” Blackburn said in a video announcement. She's running to make the state “America's conservative leader for this generation and the next.” In this Congress, Blackburn was a strong supporter of a successful push by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to move a spectrum pipeline as part of the budget reconciliation package that's larger than what the House Commerce Committee originally proposed (see 2505130059). She also chairs the Senate Judiciary Privacy Subcommittee and recently restarted the chamber's privacy legislation conversation. Blackburn, who won a second term last year (see 2411060001), was House Communications Subcommittee chair immediately before her first Senate election in 2018.