President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday aimed at “establishing discipline and accountability in the environmental review and permitting process for infrastructure projects.” Trump spoke about the executive order during a news conference but the White House didn’t release the order’s text by our deadline. Trump didn’t mention broadband or other telecom infrastructure during the briefing, but the order's text does specify that "broadband internet" projects are affected. The Trump administration’s work on an infrastructure plan has been widely expected to include a section on broadband deployment (see 1706220042 and 1707240071). Trump said his order is aimed at dramatically reducing the timeline for the federal environmental review and permitting process, saying he wants “quick” turnaround. The order also requires one lead federal agency to spearhead reviews for each major infrastructure project and would hold agencies accountable if they “fail to streamline” their processes, Trump said. “No longer will we accept a broken system that benefits consultants and lobbyists at the expense of hard-working Americans,” he said. Trump later noted that a White House-initiated infrastructure plan is "something that I think we’ll have bipartisan support on” in Congress, in contrast to the Senate’s 49-51 vote earlier this month defeating a bill to repeal some elements of the Affordable Care Act. “I actually think Democrats will go along with the infrastructure” bill, he said. National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn later told reporters that the White House hopes to pivot to a full infrastructure plan later this year once the House clears tax revamp legislation. At that point, “we'll put infrastructure in the House,” he said.

Comments topped 20 million in the FCC net neutrality proceeding. There were 309,318 results posted Monday in docket 17-108 by late afternoon, pushing the cumulative total to 20.27 million, said the count in the Electronic Comment Filing System.

In her first meeting back at the FCC, Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel visited 911 officials who handled the congressional baseball shootings June 14, she tweeted Monday. A commission official said Rosenworcel discussed 911 issues at the Alexandria, Virginia, public safety answering point with the city's director of the Department of Emergency Communications, Renee Gordon, and her team. Also Monday, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced the appointment of Jennifer Tatel as acting general counsel. She previously was deputy general counsel and chief of staff. New Commissioner Brendan Carr, who was general counsel, named acting advisers: Nirali Patel for media, consumer protection and enforcement; Kevin Holmes for wireless and public safety; and Nathan Eagan for wireline. Rosenworcel and Carr were sworn in Friday (see 1708110053).

Atlanta attorney Carolyn Roddy, a member of the Trump transition's FCC landing team who went to the work for the FCC and then left (see 1708100047), said Monday the brevity of her service was expected. Roddy told us that after serving on the transition team, she joined the agency as part of an administration “beachhead team.” Roddy said other parts of the government got similar staff as part of a four-month transition starting when President Donald Trump took office in January. “I was technically assigned to the Wireless Bureau,” she said. “It was always understood that it would be 120 days.” Key staff positions have been filled at the FCC and Chairman Ajit Pai has an agenda, she said: “There was no reason for me to be extended.” Roddy is back in Atlanta in private practice.

An FCC draft order would require collection of more than $350 million in regulatory fees from industry in FY 2017 and adopt some changes to the methodology, a spokesman said. An accompanying draft Further NPRM would seek comment "related to international bearer circuits and the bulk rate calculation for cable," he emailed Monday. The draft item circulated Aug. 4, said the circulation list updated Friday (see 1708110055). A previous NPRM proposed "to reduce the relative contribution of smaller stations to the total amount to be paid by the broadcast industry by increasing the contribution of larger stations in larger markets," Wilkinson Barker broadcast lawyer David Oxenford blogged. "Also proposed was a reduction in the amount to be paid by TV satellite stations, and increasing the exemption for 'de minimis' obligations -- allowing those companies with a total fee obligation of less than $1000 to avoid paying fees altogether (an increase from the $500 in previous years)." Once the FCC issues the order, it usually puts out a public notice setting payment dates and the bureaus usually put out fee guides with further details, he said, suggesting this year's fees will likely be due in September.

A draft FCC order and Further NPRM on industry regulatory fees for FY 2017 was sent to commissioners Aug. 4, said the circulation list updated Friday.

The “Trump FCC’ has “bent the rules” to facilitate Sinclair buying Tribune, former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler blogged for the Brookings Institution Friday. Wheeler pointed to Chairman Ajit Pai’s resurrection of the UHF discount (see 1704200048) and proposed elimination of the main studio rule (see 1707030047) as “strategically knocking down all the regulatory barriers to Sinclair Broadcast becoming a national goliath.” Though Sinclair is seen as a right-leaning company favorable to the Trump administration, conservative channels such as TheBlaze, One America News Network and Newsmax (see 1708080067) joined those deal foes, Wheeler said. “The Sinclair merger has built an interesting record of opposition from strange bedfellows,” he said. “The politics of the decision are now muddled, but politics shouldn’t be the basis for decisionmaking anyway.” The record on Sinclair/Tribune “would suggest that even though the Trump FCC has bent the rules to facilitate such a merger, it is not in the public interest,” Wheeler said. The agency and Sinclair didn't comment.

Atlanta attorney Carolyn Roddy, a member of the Trump transition's FCC landing team (see 1701060056), made her way to the agency in the Wireless Bureau as a political appointee, but has since left. Her appointment was revealed in records posted by MuckRock. Roddy was metropolitan Atlanta deputy field representative for the Trump campaign from November 2015 to March 2016, according to her resume. Brian Hart and Tina Pelkey, who handle media relations for Chairman Ajit Pai, are the other political appointees, records show. Roddy shows up in a May version of the bureau organization chart as special counsel in the bureau’s front office. She's no longer at the commission, officials confirmed. Roddy didn't comment.

A court upheld an FCC order awarding AT&T $252,496 in damages from "sham" CLECs the agency previously found engaged in traffic pumping, while vacating any parts "that tread on the merits of the companies' state law claims." A unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled Friday on a petition of All American Telephone, e-Pinnacle and Chasecom in All American Telephone Co. et al. v. FCC, No. 15-1354. Judges hinted at the mixed ruling at oral argument (see 1703310068). The panel said "standing behind" the companies was ILEC Beehive Telephone, which in the early 2000s partnered with Joy Enterprises, a provider of conferencing and sex chat lines, in a "classic traffic-pumping scheme" that "became a victim of its own success" when its soaring traffic volume caused its access-charge rates to plummet. "Unwilling to let a good scheme end," Beehive created CLEC substitutes, which had more flexibility, the panel said. The companies made federal and state claims against AT&T (which filed counterclaims) in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. That court stayed the case and referred AT&T's federal claims to the FCC. The commission sided with AT&T in 2013, finding CLECs liable for traffic pumping. It awarded damages in 2015, prompting the companies' court challenge to that order. The D.C. Circuit panel found the damages permissible; its conclusion -- that the companies "did not render any service to AT&T chargeable" under federal law -- "is supported by substantial evidence," said the opinion of Judge Patricia Millett. The panel said the FCC lacked authority to address the state law claims, which "must be decided by the district court in the first instance." The FCC, All American Telephone and Beehive didn't comment.

Three civil society organizations are petitioning the Supreme Court to take up a controversial surveillance program that targets foreigners overseas but incidentally collects communications of U.S. citizens. American Mohamed Osman Mohamud's conviction in a 2013 attempted bombing in Portland, Oregon, was based on information obtained through the Prism program part of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act. The Center for Democracy & Technology, Electronic Frontier Foundation and New America's Open Technology Institute said Thursday 702 allows warrantless surveillance on Americans, violating Fourth Amendment rights protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures. The petition said the 9th U.S. Circuit of Appeals' ruling last year against Mohamud "disregarded these significant constitutional defects" and instead "invented a dangerous -- and doctrinally unprecedented -- exception to the warrant requirement." The three-judge panel said since government was targeting a foreign national overseas under the section, no warrant was required to intercept the target's communications and Mohamud's incidentally collected emails (see 1702270066). The section needs to be reauthorized by Congress or it will expire. Lawmakers have been trying to get an estimate on how many Americans' communications are swept up amid resistance from the intelligence community (see 1708030046 and 1707140043).