Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren urged the FCC that it continue providing Lifeline funding for tribal households should the affordable connectivity program end. In a letter Friday in docket 21-450, Nygren said the Navajo Nation backed a Smith Bagley petition seeking an increase in tribal Lifeline support (see 2404080030). The temporary increase in support would "keep broadband affordable for tribal households, many of which are located in remote areas and are among the most in need of ACP and Lifeline support," Nygren said.
The House Appropriations and Commerce committees postponed a pair of hearings scheduled for this week on the FCC's FY 2025 funding request (see 2404300068), the panels' spokespersons separately confirmed Friday. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and the other four commissioners were set to testify at a Tuesday Communications hearing on the budget proposal. Rosenworcel was to appear at a Wednesday Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee panel. Neither of the committees announced makeup dates for the hearings Friday. Rosenworcel's brother, Brian Rosenworcel of the band Guster, announced the death of their father, Elliott, Thursday night. House Appropriations, Commerce and the FCC didn't comment on whether the hearings' delay was in response to the news.
A written presentation by SETI Institute filed a day before the FCC's March meeting will be associated with but not part of the record in the supplemental coverage from space framework proceeding approved at that meeting (see 2403140050), the FCC Office of General Counsel said in docket 23-65 Friday. The March 14 filing came during the sunshine agenda window prior to the meeting, when presentations to commissioners are prohibited. SETI is a nonprofit organization that focuses on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
The FCC is seeking information from nine other federal agencies about test labs with Chinese government ties as the agency considers a proposed rulemaking barring these labs from the FCC equipment authorization process (see 2405020071). Requests went to the Bureau of Industry Security, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, DOD, DOJ, the Federal Acquisition Security Council, FBI, Department of Homeland Security, the National Counterintelligence and Security Center and NSA, per a notice in Friday’s Daily Digest. The FCC asked for responses by May 16.
The American Civil Rights Project supports the 20 industry petitioners arguing that the 8th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court should vacate the FCC’s digital discrimination broadband rule since it runs afoul of the law and isn’t based on clear congressional intent (see 2404230032), according to the nonprofit’s amicus brief. It was filed Wednesday in docket 24-1179.
A proposal that the FCC launch a rulemaking authorizing 5/5 MHz broadband deployments in the 900 MHz band received support in comments, which were due Thursday in docket 24-99. But commenters stressed that the relocation process must be voluntary, and that the rules must protect incumbents from harmful interference. The filings offer a snapshot of how 900 MHz is used today.
Vermont’s net neutrality law seems in good shape legally following two significant, late-April decisions by the FCC and the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said experts on the statute. ISP groups must decide what to do with their 2018 lawsuit at U.S. District Court of Vermont now that the case can resume following the 2nd Circuit ruling.
The FCC should rein in its Enforcement Bureau to avoid conflicts with recent and expected U.S. Supreme Court decisions, though the current bureau doesn’t “overreach” as frequently as it did under former Chairman Tom Wheeler, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said Thursday during a Wiley panel discussion called “Opportunities to Reform FCC Enforcement." Carr told us, “The jury is still out” on whether the EB under FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel needs reform, he said in an interview after the panel discussion: “We’re not off the rails the way the agency was during the Wheeler tenure."
The FCC plans to update its orbital debris mitigation docket, its Space Bureau said in a docket 18-313 public notice Thursday. It said it especially wanted comments about whether to analyze collision risks for non-geostationary orbit systems aggregately or per satellite, and about the use of U.S. Orbital Debris Mitigation Standard Practices’ probability of collision metric as a threshold or safe harbor as a means of identifying systems that may need further review. In addition, it said it was seeking updated input evaluating the likelihood of individual satellite maneuvering failures within a multisatellite system.
The FCC should issue an NPRM seeking comment on a proposed report about content vendor diversity, Allen Media, the United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry, the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, Black Women’s Roundtable, and attorney David Goodfriend of I Street Advocates said in a meeting with an aide to Commissioner Geoffrey Starks Tuesday, according to an ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 22-209. A petition for rulemaking on the proposal was already the subject of a round of comments in 2022 (see 2207250060). The proposed report “will be effective and not burdensome,” the filing said. The proposal would collect data from FCC regulatees that operate media companies -- such as Disney and Google -- about their vendors. “No vendor, including small vendors, will be required to submit data, but the data that is submitted will add to the publicly available information.” The data would “be consistent, according to FCC-adopted definitions and thus can be compared easily with each other, unlike the anecdotal information available now.” Creating the report would be in line with provisions in the Cable Act authorizing the FCC to adopt rules specifying how regulatees encourage minority and female entrepreneurship, the filing said.