President Donald Trump may have invoked his lingering displeasure Tuesday over FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's July decision to issue a hearing designation order in the review of Sinclair's doomed deal to buy Tribune Media (see 1807160048). Trump later that month tweeted that the HDO was “disgraceful” and “so sad and unfair” (see 1807250057). “I'm grateful to have numerous Americans of Indian and Southeast Asian heritage who fulfill critical roles across my administration,” Trump said Tuesday during a White House event celebrating the Hindu holiday Diwali. Trump singled out Pai and noted he “didn't like one decision he made, but that's all right,” prompting laughter from participants. “Not even a little bit,” Trump said. “But he's independent.”

The Supreme Court will review a junk fax case on whether the Hobbs Act required a U.S. district court to accept an FCC legal interpretation of the Telephone Consumer Protect Act, said Tuesday's order list granting cert in PDR Network v. Carlton & Harris Chiropractic, No. 17-1705. Clarification is needed on "jurisdiction of all courts to decide the proper level of deference afforded to interpretive agency guidance," said PDR's June 21 petition, citing a "circuit split" over interplay between the Hobbs Act and Chevron: The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' "jurisdiction-stripping ruling would elevate those agencies identified in the Hobbs Act above even the judiciary; empowering agency orders to trump the courts." Carlton & Harris' Aug. 29 response urged cert denial "because (1) every circuit court to decide the question has ruled that the FCC’s interpretations of the TCPA are binding in district courts and may be challenged only by following the procedures in the Administrative Orders Review Act (the 'Hobbs Act) ... and there is no 'circuit split' on this issue, as the Petition contends; and (2) the difference of interpretation between the Second Circuit and the Fourth Circuit regarding the meaning of the FCC’s 2006 rule stating that faxes offering 'free goods or services' are presumed to be 'advertisements' does not warrant this Court’s review."

Broadcast tower companies told FCC Incentive Auction Task Force members and Media Bureau and other staff there are “'early warning signs' of potential delays in the repack process" of TV channels. American Tower, Sinclair's Dielectric, Stainless and Vertical Technology Services representatives mentioned "unforeseen site failures" and low-power TV "displacements requiring the pulling of equipment and crews, poor weather conditions delaying tower work by months, stations conducting their latter-phase transitions earlier than required by the Commission, and unforeseen structural and permitting delays." Delays "persist despite daily contact with rigging companies to coordinate shipments and request last-minute parts," said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 16-306. "Broadcast Tower Representatives expressed their collective concern regarding the extreme shortage of competent, safe crews available to install main antennas in accordance with the Commission’s repack schedule." The reps said they are "witnessing the effects of an unrealistic expectation of what the repacking of 987 stations, with associated LPTV displacements and FM accommodations, entails." Commission staff "have been in close contact with the stations in Phase 1, and the presentation at this meeting echoes the positive reports we’ve heard about the progress that those stations have made toward completing their transition" this month, an FCC spokesperson responded. "Our transition plan was developed by taking resource constraints into account and we will continue to monitor progress in future phases closely and work with stations who may experience delays. Our ultimate goal is to have every station move according to their scheduled transition phase and stations should continue to work towards their phase deadline." Broadcast officials fear a repacking-related backlog (see 1810260034).

The FCC and a staffer suing for hostile work environment (see 1803260002) reached a settlement in principle. Plaintiff Sharon Stewart is reviewing a written settlement agreement prepared by the agency, said a docket 15-57 joint status report (in Pacer) filed Thursday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

The FCC, not Portland, Oregon, said the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should suspend review of the city's challenge to the agency order banning local moratoriums of wireless infrastructure deployments (see 1811070051). The FCC replied to Portland's opposition (filings in Pacer) to the commission motion to hold the case in abeyance.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stayed the mandate of a panel's partial reversal of an FCC order that largely deregulated business data service rates of price-cap incumbent telcos. An FCC motion to stay the mandate is granted until Nov. 12, 2019, said a court order (in Pacer) in Citizens Telecommunications v. FCC, No. 17-2296. The FCC argued the stay would avoid BDS market disruption while it considers the procedural reversal and remand of TDM interoffice transport pricing deregulation (see 1810100054), which it proposed to reinstate in a recent Further NPRM (see 1810230032). Incompas and Sprint opposed the motion while USTelecom, AT&T and CenturyLink backed it (see 1810220035).

Comments are due Dec. 10 on a study on feasibility of a three-digit dialing code for a national suicide prevention and mental health crisis hotline and analyzing how well the current National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (NSPL) addresses veterans' needs, said a public notice in Friday's FCC Daily Digest. That study was required by the National Suicide Hotline Improvement Act signed into law in August (see 1808140037). The Wireline Bureau also said it's directing the North American Numbering Council to provide recommendations on issues the FCC needs to address in that study. In a letter to NANC Chairman Travis Kavulla, bureau Chief Kris Monteith said the group should consider the feasibility of using a currently designed three-digit dialing code, including codes the FCC has set up for other purposes, versus creating a new code, and do a cost-benefit analysis of using a three-digit code compared with current use of the NSPL toll-free number.

BMI and ASCAP consent decrees let companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google and Netflix not pay songwriters what they deserve (see 1810010031), and it’s good DOJ is exploring these decrees, National Music Publishers Association CEO David Israelite said in a Technology Policy Institute podcast. Songwriters “should have a right to negotiate the price of what they create in a free market, and the consent decrees prevent them,” he said in a conversation TPI promoted this week that included RIAA President Mitch Glazier. Thursday, the Internet Association didn’t comment. The Music Modernization Act’s Mechanical Licensing Collective (see 1809180059) will revolutionize how the music industry treats data, Israelite said. The MLC establishes a royalty payment database governed by a board of 10 publishers and four songwriters with oversight from the Copyright Office. It’s unique that the industry won’t “treat the ownership information as proprietary or confidential but rather as public information that is designed to get proper payment,” Israelite said, noting sound recordings will be publicly accessible for three years when the proper owner can’t be found.

San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo (D) accused the FCC of allowing a wireless industry land grab by approving an order in September designed to speed siting of small cells (see 1809260029). Many mayors “have welcomed the opportunity to partner with the private sector to equip their city-owned streetlight poles with these new technologies and achieve more equitable access in their communities,” Liccardo wrote Thursday in a New York Times opinion. “The telecommunications industry has quietly worked to usurp control over these coveted public assets and utilize publicly owned streetlight poles for their own profit, not the public benefit.” The new rules “force local jurisdictions to provide telecom companies with unfettered access to public streetlight poles at below-market, taxpayer-subsidized lease rates,” he said. “By eviscerating the ability of cities to negotiate with industry, the rules undermine widespread local efforts to broaden access for less affluent families and create an uncertain future for some existing agreements.” Liccardo made headlines earlier this year when he resigned from the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee complaining about a lack of local representation (see 1801250049) and his city, along with Seattle, sued the FCC (see 1810250055). Wireless industry groups didn't comment. “The real story of San Jose’s digital divide is Mayor Liccardo and his 5G tax,” emailed a spokesperson for FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr. Under Liccardo “San Jose -- the Capital of Silicon Valley -- has seen zero small cells deployed,” the spokesperson said “Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of small cells have been deployed in places overlooked by coastal elites. … For those living in San Jose, Mayor Liccardo’s leadership gap has been the cruelest part of the digital divide.” Liccardo is right, countered Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood. "While it's so important to focus on the kids and the families hurt by this FCC's policies, as he rightly does, even this telling of the harms doesn't do full justice to the comedic villainy of this FCC,” he said. “Thank goodness the FCC is in line for some serious oversight questions from the incoming House of Representatives.”

The wireless industry benefits from the FCC opting for flexible use over prescribing how particular bands are to be used, which could happen with satellite, Chairman Ajit Pai said Thursday at the Hudson Institute. He said the agency won't dictate how satellite companies use spectrum, especially since companies often have very different ideas. He could foresee, decades from now, algorithms dynamically managing spectrum allocation, uses changing depending on time and location, "and getting people out of the process." Pai said allowing U.S. access to Galileo signals (see 1810240030) should bring "huge benefit for consumers" via more global navigation satellite system resiliency and reliability, plus industrial applications like precision agriculture. NASA is encouraged by the mushrooming of commercial low earth orbit operations, since the agency intends to shift increasingly to buying some services from commercial operators, said Tom Cremins, NASA associate administrator-strategy and plans. Cremins said the agency continues to push technology with commercial applications and noted 2019's launch of a laser communications relay demo. Pai saw much international interest at the ITU plenipotentiary conference last week in Dubai in what the U.S. is doing broadly to remove "regulatory underbrush." He said countries struggle with similar problems as the U.S. and sometimes come up with solutions the U.S. might incorporate.