FCC Chairman Brendan Carr faced pushback Wednesday from Democrats on the House Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee about the legality of the commission’s pressure campaign against communications sector companies’ diversity, equity and inclusion programs and over the agency’s workforce reductions. Subpanel Republicans spun in favor of the FCC’s efficiency and highlighted other actions the commission has taken since Carr became chairman Jan. 20.
House Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, offered positive but different interpretations of President Donald Trump’s apparent endorsement Tuesday (see 2505200058) of the spectrum language cleared in the lower chamber's One Big Beautiful Bill Act budget reconciliation package (HR-1). The two leaders were vague about whether Trump’s statement makes it more difficult for Cruz and other senators to press for potential changes to the spectrum proposal (see 2505130059). Meanwhile, the House Rules Committee was still debating Wednesday afternoon plans for bringing HR-1 to the floor.
FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks said today's open monthly meeting will be his last as a commissioner. "This has been the role and honor of a lifetime," he said minutes ago at the meeting. Starks said in March that he would leave the agency this spring (see 2503180009). He became a commissioner in 2019. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said Starks has had a "tremendous run" in public service. "I very much value our friendship, our work together," he said.
The $34.1 billion Charter Communications/Cox Communications deal announced Friday (see 2505160060) is a strategic adaptation to changing competitive pressures in the cable ISP marketplace, not an attempt to monopolize markets, wrote Eric Fruits, a senior scholar at the International Center for Law & Economics. The newly combined company will need sizable efficiencies to remain viable in the changing marketplace, he said Tuesday. Charter and Cox have little footprint overlap, so the geographic expansion of the combined company would give it greater scale across different regions. The possibility that the FCC's review of the deal could look at the companies’ diversity, equity and inclusion policies exemplifies "the troubling politicization of regulatory processes," he added. "Such mission creep undermines rule-of-law principles and creates regulatory uncertainty that harms investment." He said DOJ and FCC reviews should focus on "demonstrable, transaction-specific competitive harms, rather than abstract concerns about size or concentration." With the two companies having limited geographic overlap and facing intense competition in broadband and video, "the standard for proving harm should be appropriately rigorous."
National Religious Broadcasters emailed us Monday night claiming a victory over "woke ideology" in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that day overturning the FCC's 2024 order on collecting data on workforce diversity (see 2505190044). The group was among the prevailing petitioners.
The FCC Wireline Bureau announced Tuesday that there's “sufficient funding available to fully meet” the Universal Service Administrative Co.’s estimated demand for Category 1 and Category 2 requests for E-rate support in funding year 2025. In March, USAC estimated that the total demand for the year will be $3.225 billion, including an estimated demand of $1.806 billion for Category 1 services and $1.418 billion for Category 2 services, the bureau said. The E-rate program inflation-based cap for the year is $5.059 billion. The bureau directed USAC to fully fund all requests and use $500 million in E-rate funds unused in prior years “to offset the collection requirements needed to fully meet demand for such services.”
The FCC Enforcement Bureau issued a warning to Miami’s Biscayne Towing & Salvage for allegedly operating a radio that was interfering with 156.8 MHz (VHF Marine Channel 16), following a complaint by the U.S. Coast Guard. Operation on the frequency “is reserved for the marine radio service and is for ship to ship or ship to shore (coast station) operation,” said a notice posted Tuesday. It gave the business 10 days to report back on what steps it has taken to ensure the interference has stopped and won't happen again.
The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology on Tuesday approved waivers sought by Comsearch and C3Spectra, which provide automated frequency coordination systems in the 6 GHz band, to take building entry loss into account for “composite” standard- and low-power devices that are restricted to operating indoors. “We find that granting this waiver will serve the public interest by increasing the utility of 6 GHz unlicensed devices without increasing the potential for these devices to cause harmful interference to licensed services that share the spectrum,” OET said.
The FCC Wireless Bureau announced Tuesday that it found a spectrum transaction between Grain Management and T-Mobile to be “acceptable for filing” and started a pleading cycle. The companies said in March that Grain Management would buy all of T-Mobile's 800 MHz spectrum in exchange for cash and Grain's 600 MHz spectrum portfolio (see 2503210033).
CTIA told the FCC there appears to be broad agreement (see 2504210013) that the commission should move carefully as it considers changes to wireless emergency alerts, which were proposed in a February Further NPRM. Replies were due Monday in dockets 15-94 and 15-91. The FNPRM proposed allowing more flexibility in issuing alerts using a “Public Safety Message” classification (see 2502270042).