House Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee ranking member Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said Thursday that he won't seek reelection this year. Hoyer, a former House majority leader, holds a key role in shaping FCC and FTC appropriations. He clashed with FCC Chairman Brendan Carr during a hearing in May over how much the Wireline Bureau based its approval of Verizon’s $20 billion purchase of Frontier on the carrier agreeing to end its workforce equity programs (see 2505160050). House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., lamented Hoyer's planned departure and praised his work on the panel. Hoyer has been in the House since 1981.
Senior Senate Commerce Committee member Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., told reporters Tuesday that she’s “seriously considering” running for governor after incumbent Democratic Gov. Tim Walz announced that he won’t seek reelection to a third term. Klobuchar has been active on rural broadband and other communications policy matters. She was among several Senate Commerce Democrats who criticized FCC Chairman Brendan Carr during a December hearing over his mid-September comments against ABC and parent Disney, which were widely perceived as causing the network’s since-reversed decision to pull Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air (see 2512170070).
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and 15 other Democratic members of New York’s congressional delegation urged NTIA on Friday to allow the state “to retain and use BEAD non-deployment funds for broadband adoption.” BEAD’s non-deployment funding, which some estimates have found to account for $20 billion of the program’s $42.5 billion total, has faced challenges from the Trump administration and some congressional Republicans. President Donald Trump earlier this month issued an executive order that directs NTIA to potentially curtail non-deployment BEAD funding for states that the administration determines have overly burdensome AI laws (see 2512120048).
Nicole Gustafson, NAB's senior vice president of government relations, said during a podcast released Friday that she's “very optimistic” that the House will vote on the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act (HR-979) “early next year,” given recent evidence of momentum in the measure’s favor.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr and Senate Commerce Committee member Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., traded barbs Wednesday night and Thursday over their exchange at the panel’s commission oversight hearing (see 2512170070) about what the senator called inconsistent handling of news distortion complaints against media companies. Carr refused during the hearing to commit to Rosen’s request that he open “an investigation into Fox News” for editing a 2024 interview with now-President Donald Trump amid his election contest that showed only part of his answer to a question about whether he would release files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Senate Communications Subcommittee Chair Deb Fischer, R-Neb., and 13 other senators urged NTIA on Tuesday to “preserve states’ ability to use their non-deployment BEAD funds consistent with congressional intent” amid concerns that the Trump administration might seek to claw that money back. Some estimates have found that $20 billion of BEAD’s $42.5 billion in funding qualifies as non-deployment money. President Donald Trump last week signed an executive order that directs NTIA to potentially curtail non-deployment BEAD funding for states that the administration determines have overly burdensome AI laws (see 2512120048).
House Communications Subcommittee member Nanette Barragan, D-Calif., on Friday night hailed the FCC's publication in the Federal Register of the Public Safety Bureau's January multilingual wireless emergency alerts rules (see 2501080029). Attorneys general from 18 states and the city of New York threatened in November to pursue legal action to force the rules’ publication (see 2511070042). Barragan noted that she led a letter in May with more than two dozen other House Democrats pressing the FCC to publish the rules and begin implementing them.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., on Thursday urged Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to testify on Capitol Hill in response to the Trump administration allowing sales of the company's more advanced H200 AI chips to China. Warren said during a floor speech that she is concerned that President Donald Trump may force DOJ to curtail a crackdown begun earlier this week on smuggling of such chips to China. “Will Donald Trump muzzle his own [DOJ] because he does not want Americans to know that he is selling out our national security?” she asked. The White House, Commerce Department and Nvidia didn't immediately comment.
The Senate voted 75-22 Thursday on a motion to proceed to the House-passed compromise version of the FY 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (S-1071) that omits Senate-passed language from its earlier NDAA version (S-2296) that would have given the DOD and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman authority to essentially veto commercial use of the 3.1-3.45 and 7.4-8.4 GHz bands (see 2512080055). The House’s original NDAA version (HR-3838) didn't include similar language. The compromise NDAA also omits language to preempt states’ AI laws amid GOP divisions on that issue (see 2512030038). The House passed S-1071 312-112 Wednesday.
A compromise version before the House of the FY 2026 National Defense Authorization Act without language allowing DOD to essentially veto commercial use of the 3.1-3.45 and 7.4-8.4 GHz bands (see 2512080055) "is good as a matter of policy & law," the Free State Foundation wrote Tuesday on social media. Giving DOD authority over the spectrum "would violate separation of powers by constraining [the president's] authority over the executive branch." The group called the provision's removal a victory for Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, "who resisted the efforts to place certain frequencies off-limits."