Shutdown Raises Staff and Industry Concerns About FCC Filings, October Agenda

FCC officials have told us that roughly 80% of agency staff have continued to be furloughed during the shutdown, though some have been reactivated for brief periods. Employees said FCC headquarters has remained nearly empty, though some staff members continue to work on specific projects in the building. Even some at the highest levels have been among those who were furloughed and then called back in, including Erin Boone, acting chief of the Media Bureau, officials said.

On the 10th floor, Commissioners Olivia Trusty and Anna Gomez have one aide each, and Chairman Brendan Carr is also working with a reduced staff, FCC officials told us. The officials also said the commissioners need the help in part because of the lengthy October agenda, which has nine items. The agency's last agenda of similar length was in September 2024, and at that meeting six of the items were brief, uncontroversial enforcement actions on pirate broadcasting.

FCC staffers are eager to get back to regular work, several told us. "I have received texts from folks who are anxious" about reductions in force, said William Knowles-Kellett, president of the FCC chapter of the National Treasury Employees Union, in an email. "Federal Employees generally like serving the public and getting paid on time for it. Personally, I am upset about the work piling up -- our work drives a segment of the economy that has $300-$400 billion in revenues but more importantly, provides the infrastructure for everyone else to do their jobs/stay safe/enjoy their leisure time." FCC staffers have told the union that they're nervous about paying their bills and questioning their choice to work in public service. “Missing paychecks is never fun,” one FCC official told us.

All three commissioners are still taking ex parte meetings and calls. “Preparations for the FCC's October Open Meeting are still underway during the government shutdown,” Gomez said in a post on X last week. “My office welcomes requests for ex parte meetings regarding the nine items on the agenda.” In an email, Trusty said, “Yes, we are having ex parte meetings and calls in the lead up to the October Open Meeting.” An aide to Carr told us his office is also taking ex parte meetings, and ex parte filings related to the Oct. 28 meeting are still being made available in the agency’s electronic comment filing system.

This shutdown is different from others, said Cooley’s Robert McDowell, a former commissioner. “Some furloughed federal workers are being called back in for specific projects that are deemed ‘essential’ by whomever has that authority,” and items on the meeting agenda “fall into that category.” Principals “seem open to having meetings even if they have no support staff,” he added. “All of this is against the backdrop of some permanent layoffs. So the juxtaposition can be confusing.”

The FCC also appears to be more active than in past shutdowns. During a 16-day shutdown in 2013, acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn was one of the few officials left in the building (see 1310180026). The agency completely shuttered its systems then, including ECFS. This time, documents are still available but aren’t being posted when filed, leaving anyone who's tracking Oct. 28 agenda items in the dark. This shutdown has also brought additional complications. For instance, federal officials were unable to make the trip to Las Vegas last week for the Mobile World Congress, so FCC commissioners had to send recorded remarks (see 2510160026). At NTIA's show last week, also in Las Vegas, only Jill Springer, the group's chief environmental review and permitting officer, was in attendance, officials said.

Getting ready for the Oct. 28 meeting “will be hard, especially with fewer advisers,” said a longtime regulatory attorney. The items were likely prepared in September with the shutdown looming, “but that doesn’t help the two other commissioners get ready for the meeting.” It wouldn’t be a surprise if some of the items got pulled, the lawyer said, which is more likely if a commissioner “is concerned about a particular issue and thinks it needs more work by staff.”

Fletcher Heald’s Francisco Montero said it has proven difficult to reach anyone at the Media Bureau since the shutdown started. “I was impressed by the scope and depth of the October meeting agenda, as well as … Carr's public comments,” he said in an email. He initially thought that “they must know something I don't. But I'm increasingly starting to wonder if it isn't laced with some wishful thinking.” Carr emphasized in his blog about the October meeting that the FCC is "keeping a rapid pace," taking on nine items despite the shutdown.

Other industry officials reported similar problems setting up meetings. Worth Rises Executive Director Bianca Tylek said earlier this month that advocates for prisoners and their families were having trouble scheduling meetings on changes to incarcerated people's communications services rates, perhaps the most controversial item scheduled for a vote (see 2510090046). However, Tylek told us Thursday that groups concerned about the draft order and Further NPRM have since been able to schedule a series of meetings, including with Carr’s office.

Filing Confusion

Industry attorneys also told us that the shutdown has created confusion about what filings may be required of licensees. While the agency issued a public notice pushing most filing deadlines to the first business day after the shutdown, it largely didn’t apply to enforcement matters, an industry attorney told us. Responses to an Enforcement Bureau audit of 300 broadcast stations were due Friday but couldn't be submitted normally because broadcaster public files are unavailable, the attorney said.

Broadcaster quarterly/issues program lists were also due Oct. 10, and broadcasters have filing deadlines related to political ads and emergency testing as well, Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney Davina Sashkin said in an interview. “A lot of what I've been doing the last week or two is explaining to people what these extensions and suspensions mean.” For attorneys, the unavailability of FCC databases makes it difficult to access information that could be needed to prepare station transactions, she said. They're also concerned about what will happen to the FCC’s computer systems on the first business day after the shutdown, when most of the delayed filings will come due, Sashkin said. “Could the whole system crash? Maybe!”

The FCC generally has “more runway” to operate during a government closure than some other agencies, said Joe Kane, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation's director of broadband and spectrum policy. “With an extended shutdown, the commission will end up short-handed,” he said. There’s “a lot of staff work that goes into preparing items for the open meeting agenda, so while the draft items show that a lot of that has already been done for the October meeting, I'd expect them to have to play catch-up for the November meeting if the shutdown continues.”

No End in Sight

The shutdown became the third-longest in U.S. history Friday with no signs of an end to the impasse in the near future. The Senate was set to vote yet again Monday on invoking cloture on a motion to proceed on the Republicans’ House-passed continuing resolution (HR-5371), which would reopen federal agencies through Nov. 21, but it's unlikely to reach the 60-vote threshold to advance. The upper chamber fell short of that threshold Thursday, voting 51-45 on HR-5371 then. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., extended the lower chamber’s recess through at least Oct. 24, meaning it won’t be in session to consider any potential alternatives to HR-5371.

Meanwhile, the federal judiciary said Friday it won’t have enough funding remaining as of Monday to maintain “full, paid operation.” Federal judges “will continue to serve … but court staff may only perform certain excepted activities permitted under the Anti-Deficiency Act, [including] activities necessary to perform constitutional functions under Article III” of the Constitution. The court system's Pacer service and electronic documents filing system “will remain in operation,” and individual courts “will determine which cases will continue on schedule, and which may be delayed,” the judiciary said.