Communications Daily is tracking the lawsuits below involving appeals of FCC actions. New cases since the last update are marked with a *.
AT&T CEO John Stankey warned Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s tariffs could hurt the carrier, echoing Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg on Tuesday (see 2504220033). Unlike Verizon, which lost postpaid phone subscribers in Q1, AT&T reported 324,000 postpaid phone net adds in the quarter, buoyed by FirstNet.
Two top Senate Commerce Committee Democrats are voicing concerns that speculation that President Donald Trump may move to fire FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez (see 2503200057) will scare off potential Democratic candidates to replace retiring Commissioner Geoffrey Starks. Democratic FCC stakeholders began worrying about Gomez’s fate after Trump’s unprecedented March firings of Democratic FTC Commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter (see 2503190057). Legal experts said during a Broadband Breakfast webinar Wednesday that the U.S. Supreme Court appears likely to overturn Humphrey’s Executor v. U.S., a 1935 decision stopping the president from firing FTC commissioners without cause, which has implications for the FCC and other independent agencies.
A loss of agency independence will ease the path for corruption and make it harder to address bipartisan issues such as privacy and increasing competition, said a trio of Democratic agency officials recently fired by the White House. For agencies like the FTC or Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, “if we are an arm of the administration, then instead of being a watchdog, we become a lap dog,” said fired PCLOB member and former FCC official Travis LeBlanc during a Center for American Progress panel discussion Wednesday.
Updating the spectrum sharing framework between geostationary orbit (GSO) and non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellite systems now, instead of waiting for pending international proceedings, would get Americans enhanced satellite broadband faster, SpaceX and Telesat said Tuesday (docket 25-157). They suggested changes to the draft NPRM regarding GSO/NGSO sharing in the 10.7-12.7, 17.3-18.6 and 19.7-20.2 GHz bands on the FCC's April meeting agenda (see 2504070054). Those changes included proposing that current GSO protections ultimately sunset so NGSO systems aren't unduly limited. The companies also called for the NPRM to propose backstop short-term and long-term interference protection criteria.
Workers at the Nexstar-owned newspaper The Hill condemned the broadcaster over a Semafor report that Nexstar fired a reporter to appease the Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG). “The Hill sacrificed one of our members to satisfy" President Donald Trump, said a Monday release from The Hill Guild, a workers organization made up of newsroom staff from the paper. “To say we are disappointed is an understatement.”
The FCC’s foreign-sponsored content rules don’t meet the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act and run “headlong into some of the most critical priorities of the Trump Administration,” said NAB in comments filed Monday with the OMB and FCC. The rules and the related information collection “are at odds with recent administration directives to eliminate, modify and stop adopting/approving unlawful, burdensome regulations,” NAB said. The 2024 order for foreign-sponsored content requires standardized certifications from broadcasters and entities leasing programming time on whether a lessee is a foreign governmental entity. “The diligence requirements associated with the foreign sponsorship identification rules and related information collections are precisely the sorts of requirements that the current Administration expects federal agencies to repeal.” OMB should disapprove the rules, or “at least require the Commission to gather more data and develop more accurate estimates in connection with the proposed information collections,” NAB said. The group has also challenged the rule in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where oral argument in the case took place earlier this month (see 2504070019).
Gray Media wants the full 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to rehear its legal challenge against a $518,283 forfeiture, the company said Monday in a petition for rehearing en banc, citing recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions and the 5th Circuit’s recent ruling against the FCC over a penalty assessed against AT&T (see 2504180021). Last month, the 11th Circuit upheld the FCC’s forfeiture order against Gray over a violation of ownership rules (see 2503070004) but vacated the penalty because the agency didn’t adequately provide notice that the violation was “egregious.”
Bill Owens, the longtime executive producer of CBS’ 60 Minutes, is resigning over what he said is a loss of journalistic independence, according to a New York Times report Tuesday. CBS faces a $10 billion lawsuit from President Donald Trump and an FCC news distortion proceeding (see 2504140044 and 2502050063), both connected to a 60 Minutes interview last fall of former Vice President Kamala Harris. CBS’ parent company, Paramount Global, also needs FCC approval to finalize its $8 billion purchase by Skydance (see 2503210049). In a memo to staff, Owens said it had become clear that he would no longer be allowed to run the show independently as he had been, the NYT story said. Owens had previously said he wouldn’t apologize to Trump as part of any settlement of his suit. Facing a similar suit from Trump, ABC issued a public statement of regret and made a $15 million contribution to the foundation responsible for constructing Trump’s presidential library (see 2412160043). CBS didn’t comment.
The American Bankers Association urged FCC commissioners to approve a draft robocall NPRM that seeks to close a gap in the commission’s Stir/Shaken authentication rules. The NPRM, which addresses the caller ID authentication gap resulting from non-IP networks, is set for a vote April 28 (see 2504070054). “Voice calls that impersonate banks and other legitimate businesses harm consumers and undermine those businesses’ ability to communicate with their customers,” the group said in a filing posted Tuesday (docket 17-97). “If a call passes through a non-IP framework, the STIR/SHAKEN attestation is dropped,” it said: “There is evidence that criminals exploit this gap in our caller ID authentication framework to perpetrate fraud on consumers.” The FCC is also seeing lobbying regarding the 37 GHz draft order (see 2504220011) and the geostationary orbit/non-geostationary orbit satellite spectrum sharing NPRM (see 2504220006) on Monday's meeting agenda.