Electric utilities American Electric Power and Dominion Energy jointly filed in support of the Edison Electric Institute's petition asking the FCC to clarify that utilities have “prior express consent” under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act to send “demand response calls and texts” to their customers (see 2503100047). “Demand response initiatives are developed and implemented by electric utility companies to incentivize their customers to limit power use during periods of peak demand, or to shift power use to times of lower demand,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 02-278. “The immediate impact of such behavior is to reduce stress on the electric delivery system, and in turn, to minimize the likelihood of a black out or brown out when power demand is expected to reach the maximum that the system can sustain,” the companies said. Utility National Grid USA also supported the petition.
The Ecommerce Innovation Alliance told the FCC that the issues its members face have gotten worse since it filed a petition in March asking for a declaratory ruling finding that people who provide prior express written consent to receive text messages can't claim damages under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act for messages received outside the hours of 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. (see 2503030036). Comments were due on the petition Thursday, replies April 25.
The Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the U.S. Telecommunications Services Sector notified the FCC on Thursday that T-Mobile and UScellular “provided complete responses” to the committee’s initial questions on T-Mobile’s proposed acquisition of wireless assets from the smaller carrier (see 2405280047). The committee, which is informally known as Team Telecom, “shall complete its initial review of the Applications before the end of the 120-day initial review period, which begins on the date of this letter,” said a filing in docket 24-286. “The Commission will be notified promptly in the event of an extension of the 120-day initial review period or the need arises to conduct a 90-day secondary assessment.”
States, political subdivisions, tribes and Alaska Native villages or regional corporations have until the July 17 deadline to submit information on the amount of revenue collected in 2024 in 988 fees and charges and how that revenue was used, the FCC Wireline Bureau said Thursday (docket 18-336). The data will be used in a report to Congress, it said.
The Senate confirmed Republican Mark Meador as an FTC commissioner Thursday on a party-line 50-46 vote amid fierce opposition from chamber Democrats over President Donald Trump’s disputed March firing of Democratic Commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter (see 2503190057). Bedoya and Slaughter are suing to overturn their dismissal. Democrats are concerned that Trump may seek to fire the FCC’s two Democrats or refuse to name someone to replace party-affiliated Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, who plans to resign this spring (see 2503180067).
FCC Space Bureau Chief Jay Schwarz spoke Monday at the Space Foundation’s Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, two days after the FCC chairman’s office denied official travel requests from Commissioners Anna Gomez and Nathan Simington for the NAB Show in Las Vegas (see 2504040059). “Spoke at #40thSpaceSymposium about how the FCC’s Space Bureau has a bias for innovation under Chairman Brendan Carr and was happy explaining how the FCC will be reviewing outdated technical satellite rules so rural Americans can get great broadband,” Schwarz said in a LinkedIn post Tuesday. The FCC didn't respond to a request for comment on Schwarz's travel arrangements. Simington and Gomez also didn’t comment.
Letting ISPs retire copper lines and move to next-generation technologies is critical to broadband deployment, industry experts said during a USTelecom forum Thursday. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has said repeatedly that the agency wants to make it easier for ISPs to modernize their networks (see 2504030011). Other executives warned that uncertainty in the BEAD program could be slowing broadband deployment.
A White House executive order that says agencies can dispense with notice-and-comment requirements when repealing some rules is unlikely to have an immediate impact on the FCC because Chairman Brendan Carr has at his disposal many traditional ways of deleting rules, academics, industry lobbyists and attorneys said in interviews. Along with the order on notice and comment, the White House also released an order requiring agencies to scuttle “anti-competitive” regulations and another repealing showerhead measures that could affect how agencies justify decisions.
A broadcaster accused by the FCC Enforcement Bureau of engaging in a 2010 sham transfer of stations to his niece was assisting her with the day-to-day operations of the stations after the sale in accordance with FCC rules, said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 23-267 from broadcast station owner Antonio Cesar Guel (see 2502250064). “It was quite natural, and completely expected, that [Guel’s niece, Jennifer Juarez] often, and repeatedly, would rely upon Mr. Guel’s past experience in conjunction with the operation of the Stations,” the one filing said. That “does not equate” to impermissible control. In questioning witnesses in the case, the EB repeatedly confused being in charge of day-to-day operations, such as engineering matters, and being in charge of all operations, said Guel’s filing. All the testimony cited by the EB as proof that Guel remained in charge of the stations actually shows only that he was in charge of day-to-day operations -- “an involvement which specifically is permitted under FCC policies and which is not a matter under scrutiny in this proceeding,” the filing said.
The FCC is required by legal precedent to provide notice of redefined terms in regulations, even if that new definition is only in the preamble of the final rule, said NAB in a supplemental filing Wednesday in its case challenging the FCC’s foreign-sponsored content ID rules in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. During oral argument Monday, D.C. Circuit Judge Gregory Katsas questioned whether the FCC’s broadening of the definition of a “lease” of TV station airtime in the rule's preamble was bound by notice-and-comment requirements (see 2504070019). NAB’s challenge to the order is in part based on arguments that the FCC didn’t sufficiently provide notice of plans to widen the definition to include political issue ads and public service announcements. Even if the court deemed the preamble definition of "lease" exempt from notice and comment, it would still be subject to legal challenges because it's “final agency action representing the consummation of agency decision-making and [has] pragmatic legal consequences for licensees,” NAB said.