Ex-Pai Aide Leamer Urges Forceful FCC Chair for Spectrum Mandate Renewal
Digital First Project Executive Director Nathan Leamer on Wednesday said whoever chairs the FCC during the next administration should take on a more forceful role in advocating for Congress to renew the commission’s lapsed spectrum auction authority. Leamer, who served as an aide to former FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, said during a Georgetown University Center for Business and Public Policy webcast that whichever party wins the White House Nov. 5 will reexamine broadband affordability issues. He believes the FCC will have to brace for the impact of potential federal court rulings striking down its recent orders reclassifying broadband as a Communications Act Title II service and instituting anti-digital discrimination rules.
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Leamer said that if the FCC “wants” lawmakers to move on renewing the FCC’s spectrum mandate, “they need to make a really good case to Congress and cut through the noise that’s happening.” If the FCC chair wants to be heard, that person has “to be the biggest cheerleader in the room,” he said, while emphasizing he can’t speak to internal dynamics during the Biden administration. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has repeatedly urged Congress to act on spectrum renewal, including during a July House Communications Subcommittee hearing (see 2407090049). The FCC didn’t immediately comment.
“It's really incumbent on the FCC chair, whoever that is, to make sure that they are respected in the right circles in the administration,” Leamer said. It’s also important “to develop a working relationship with the NTIA administrator early on, and help the administrator cut through a lot of the interagency bullying and spectrum wars that develop.” Rosenworcel and NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson have emphasized increased interagency spectrum policy coordination (see 2202150001), but DOD and other agencies have repeatedly clashed on airwaves issues.
Leamer said “it's incumbent on the [FCC] leadership to” push back against other agencies’ spectrum claims when they’re “not true,” such as when NOAA claimed possible 24 GHz band interference risks to weather data collected by federal satellites in the adjacent 23.8 GHz band (see 2107190067). The FCC, NTIA and DOD during the Biden administration “are all saying different things to Congress” about approaching a spectrum legislative package that renews the commission’s mandate, Leamer said: “They’re not on the same wavelength.” Some DOD officials and their allies on Capitol Hill have vehemently opposed commercial 5G use of the 3.1-3.45 GHz band, a major sticking point in advancing a spectrum legislative package (see 2408150039).
The FCC, especially if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the presidential election, must decide how to grapple with “the fallout” from potential court strike downs of its Title II and digital discrimination rulings, Leamer said. Broadband industry groups are challenging the Title II order in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (see 2410030018). The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is evaluating the digital discrimination order (see 2409260040). “Those are major, major items for” Rosenworcel’s FCC, Leamer said: “How do they … pick up the pieces?”
“This also applies” if former President Donald Trump wins the White House, Leamer said. “There are a lot of items, particularly” anything the commission might want to do related to handling “Big Tech” or renewing NTIA's petition for an FCC rulemaking on its Communications Decency Act Section 230 interpretation (see 2012080067), “that you need Chevron deference to be able to move forward on. And so the question for that is, what does that look like” after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo ruling? (see 2407010036).
Leamer forecast that questions about improving broadband affordability will also remain at the top of the agenda for whichever party controls the White House and Congress next year. Congress hasn’t reached an agreement to provide more funding for the FCC’s lapsed affordable broadband program (see 2410040053), an issue entangled in the debate over a potential Universal Service Fund revamp. That will be “the top issue” that a Democratic or Republican White House could look at “from different viewpoints” because Rosenworcel has been a “very strong advocate for the ACP and trying to push for its renewal,” as has Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, the Republicans’ vice presidential nominee, Leamer said: “I don't know that that program gets reauthorized,” but affordability and USF issues will remain open for debate.