Acting FTC Chair Rebecca Kelly Slaughter named several acting agency leadership officials Monday. Reilly Dolan will be acting general counsel after having been principal deputy general counsel. Daniel Kaufman will be acting director of the Consumer Protection Bureau, where he has been a deputy director since 2012. Maribeth Petrizzi will be acting director of the Competition Bureau, where she’s been assistant director in the Compliance Division since August 2019. Michael Vita will continue as Economics Bureau acting director. Sarah Mackey will be acting director of the Office of Policy and Planning, where she was a deputy director.

President Joe Biden “restored balance and stability” by revoking a series of executive orders affecting federal employees that “had done nothing but disrupt the workplace and disrespect career civil servants,” said the National Treasury Employees Union Friday. NTEU represents FCC employees. The executive orders in question involved union restrictions, how federal employees are classified, and their civil service protections (see 2010300048). “By revoking the orders, the Biden administration upholds the 138-year-old standard that rejects patronage and makes sure the people who carry out the day-to-day business of government are nonpartisan, nonpolitical and highly qualified for the task,” said National President Tony Reardon. NTEU had challenged the orders in court.

Nothing is pending at the Supreme Court this term that will likely lead to dramatic changes in the Chevron doctrine, but some narrowing could be inevitable, experts told a Free State Foundation webinar Friday. Courts “regard telecom as something that’s highly technocratic and that generalist judges aren’t in a very good position to answer,” said Christopher Yoo, University of Pennsylvania Law School professor. The most likely next step for SCOTUS is a reinterpretation of when Chevron should apply, he said. Any new look at the doctrine reflects growing skepticism of expert agencies, Yoo said. “We’ve seen a discrediting of expertise,” he said: “We’ve started to see agencies as captured.” The trend is for justices to be “ideologically sorted and polarized,” which is clear in appointments to the court under then-President Donald Trump, said Cato Institute's Ilya Shapiro. Since becoming a justice in 2017, Neil Gorsuch “has continued his campaign against the awesome power of the administrative state, both regarding judicial over-deference to agencies and congressional over-delegation of legislative power to the agencies,” Shapiro said. “Where Gorsuch wants to pare back the scope of judicial deference, [Justice Brett] Kavanaugh has focused on the occasions where deference is applied in the first place.” Justice Amy Coney Barrett is likely to support narrowing deference, he said. Shapiro said the court could parse the difference between deference to administration agencies and independent agencies like the FCC. As the newest justice, Barrett is "a bit of a wild card,” said TechFreedom Internet Policy Counsel Corbin Barthold. Kavanaugh might want to narrow Chevron, not overturn it, Barthold said. There aren’t the votes to overturn Chevron, “but it’s still open that it might get narrowed,” he said. The court doesn’t have any cases on its current docket “that squarely raise the Chevron doctrine, but of course any case involving a government agency statutory interpretation could raise it,” said Jeffrey Lubbers, American University professor of practice in administrative law. The court heard the FCC's appeal of Prometheus IV Tuesday involving media ownership rules (see 2101190070).

FCC acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, in one of her earliest actions at the helm, pulled all items off the circulation list, the agency confirmed Friday. The webpage listing items now says, “Information is currently unavailable. Please try again later.” It’s “typical for a new chair to pull down and review all the items on circulation drafted by the prior administration,” a spokesperson emailed.

The FCC Disability Advisory Committee has been renewed and scheduled the first meeting of its fourth term virtually Feb. 18 at 1:30 p.m. EST (see personals section, Jan. 14 publication), said Thursday's Federal Register.

Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks criticized the FCC releasing its annual broadband deployment report Tuesday, the day before a new administration entered the White House. Rosenworcel said that it "confounds logic" to say that broadband is being deployed to "all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion," citing the continued disparity for students participating in remote learning. The Telecom Act Section 706 report concluded that using a long-term goal for broadband connectivity of 1 Gbps per 1,000 students and staff was no longer a meaningful measure of progress because 99% of school districts met its short-term goal of 100 Mbps per 1,000 people. Starks said "patting ourselves on the back is particularly unseemly" and Chairman Ajit Pai's refusal to withdraw the document based on its not having legal significance is "plainly inconsistent" with the Telecom Act. Starks said the determination should have been left to the Biden administration. The agency found 3-2 that advanced telecom capability is being deployed on a reasonable and timely basis "based on compelling evidence." The gap between urban and rural Americans with access to 25/3 Mbps fixed broadband service fell to 16 percentage points at the end of 2019, and mobile providers offered 5G to nearly 60% of the population. The commission found a decrease of more than 20% in Americans without access to 25/3 Mbps. "These successes resulted from forward-thinking policies that removed barriers to infrastructure investment and promoted competition and innovation," Pai said in his last full day as FCC chief. Commissioner Brendan Carr said that the report "confirms that our efforts have enabled the private sector to build out high-speed internet infrastructure at an unprecedented pace." Commissioner Nathan Simington didn't issue a statement.

The 12 GHz NPRM adopted last week (see 2101130067) and released Friday has the FCC considering two potential future uses of the band: increased terrestrial use of the shared band, or the status quo framework that sees it allocated on a primary basis for direct broadcast satellite, fixed satellite service (FSS) and fixed service. The agency asked in the NPRM about such issues as the technical parameters that could allow additional terrestrial use of the band without harmful interference to incumbents, including whether existing multichannel video and data distribution service criteria would protect non-geostationary orbit FSS from interference from higher-power two-way mobile operations. Noting arguments that NGSO FSS isn't dependent on the 12 GHz band, the FCC sought comment on those views "but reiterate[s] that we are focused on protecting incumbent licensees, including incumbent NGSO operators, from harmful interference in this proceeding." It asked whether the indoor 12 GHz unlicensed devices would be a suitable option for the need for enterprise IoT devices in locations such as confined geographic areas, buildings and campuses. It sought comment on three options for authorizing terrestrial service rights: modifying the licenses of existing licensees or auctioning either overlay or underlay licenses in the band.

FTC Chairman Joe Simons will step down Jan. 29, the agency announced Tuesday (see 2011130044). Also, Commissioner Rohit Chopra will leave the commission to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Biden transition team announced Monday. Chopra previously was CFPB assistant director. Simons said “as technology and our economy continue to evolve through the digital age, the FTC’s staff work tirelessly so that consumers continue to benefit from a fair and competitive marketplace.” Other senior staff leaving: General Counsel Alden Abbott (see personals section, Jan. 14), Competition Bureau Director Ian Conner, Competition Bureau Deputy Directors Gail Levine and Daniel Francis, Consumer Protection Bureau Director Andrew Smith, Economics Bureau Director Andrew Sweeting, Office of Public Affairs Director Cathy MacFarlane and Office of Policy Planning Director Bilal Sayyed.

Communications Decency Act Section 230 becoming a big issue was a "remarkable turn of events," FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said during an FCBA virtual event Thursday: "I still can't believe that a $740 billion defense bill got vetoed over a telecom issue." FCBA bid farewell to Pai as FCC chairman, with predecessors welcoming him to life post-commission, including Newton Minow, Richard Wiley and Julius Genachowski. Another former chairman, NCTA CEO Michael Powell, said Pai joins the "Former Chairman Hall of Lame," adding he will have to "turn in that huge Reese's mug" that Pai drinks from during monthly commissioners' meetings. Other commissioners, past and present, thanked Pai for his efforts to expand access to 5G and spectrum, among other things. Pai acknowledged there's a long line of potential successors (see 2012310023) and offered an additional suggestion: the Philadelphia Flyers mascot, Gritty. Pai cracked jokes, as FCC chiefs would do in a non-pandemic year at FCBA's annual in-person chairman's dinner. He quipped that FCBA wanted to set up the event at the Washington Hilton but instead booked it at Washington Hilton Total Landscaping. Pai joked his separation due to working from home from Commissioner Brendan Carr was "too much to bear." And in a nod to campaign ads, Pai said "at this point, I think it is only appropriate to acknowledge and to congratulate the winner of the 2020 election -- American broadcasters." He said the commission has remained busy and noted the C-band auction passed $80 billion (see 2101070053). Pai ended by raising his Reese's mug, saying there will be a "big mug to fill" (see 2011300032) and thanking staff: "We made it, and we made it together."

Ajit Pai said the FCC hasn’t backed down on tough decisions on his watch. He highlighted net neutrality, the C band (see 2101150061), Ligado and Tribune's aborted buy of Sinclair. Pai said the American Enterprise Institute Friday virtual speech was his last as FCC chairman. Buying Sprint meant T-Mobile has its "high-band and low-band assets, and Sprint’s midband assets" and "they’re now competing in 5G” with service to 250 million Americans, he said. The deal likely led to the high level of competition in the C-band auction that closed Friday, he said. Pai said all opposition hasn’t come from the left. On Sinclair, Pai noted he was surprised when President Donald Trump tweeted in 2018 criticizing the FCC decision to issue a hearing designation order on Sinclair's proposed buy of Tribune (see 1807250057). Pai said he was made aware of the tweet when people started to call. “My phone started blowing up, more so than usual,” he said. “As the merger review process unfolded, serious questions came to light about whether Sinclair was willing to take the steps necessary to bring the proposed transaction into compliance with our national ownership rule,” Pai said: While he’s no fan of the rule, “so long as it’s on the books, it must be obeyed.” Pai said the agency also stood strong in light of opposition to the FCC’s proposals on opening the C band to 5G and on Ligado: “Time and again, we did what was right."