FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson defended President Donald Trump's firing of the commission’s two Democrats during a speech at the Free State Foundation conference Tuesday. Ferguson also espoused a theory on executive power that the president may remove commissioners and install supporters on what Trump has termed “so-called” independent commissions. When Americans choose a president, “we are electing the person who is going to be able to supervise the entire government, not parts of the government,” Ferguson said.
President Donald Trump, in a March 25 interview with Newsmax, said that while he doesn't "want to have too many exceptions" to the reciprocal tariffs, the percentage that is imposed may be lower than what the administration assesses is the total burden of tariffs and non-tariff barriers.
The House Oversight Delivering on Government Efficiency Subcommittee said Wednesday it plans a March 26 hearing to examine conservatives' claims that public broadcasters’ content has a pro-Democratic bias, as expected (see 2502270071). PBS CEO Paula Kerger and NPR CEO Katherine Maher will testify starting at 10 a.m. in HVC-210. Republican lawmakers have filed several measures this year to end funding for NPR, PBS and CPB and claw back advance appropriations to the broadcasting entities (see 2502110072 and 2502120044), in part for alleged bias. PBS and other U.S. broadcasters are also facing scrutiny from the FCC via investigations that Chairman Brendan Carr has launched since taking over Jan. 20 (see 2502130060).
President Donald Trump’s unprecedented firing of Democratic FTC Commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter on Tuesday doesn’t necessarily mean FCC Democrats Geoffrey Starks and Anna Gomez are next, industry experts said. Starks has already announced plans to leave the agency this spring (see 2503180067). The two FTC Democrats have vowed to fight.
Most California Assembly Privacy Committee members supported legislation meant to stop so-called “surveillance pricing” during a livestreamed hearing Tuesday. However, some lawmakers said they believe market forces could deal with stores that try to set higher prices for individual consumers based on their personal information.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett are likely the key votes as the U.S. Supreme Court considers Humphrey’s Executor, the 1935 decision that allows Congress to limit a president’s ability to remove senior officials, TechFreedom Internet Policy Counsel Corbin Barthold wrote Tuesday in The Bulwark. “For as long as modern conservative legal thought has existed, there has been a campaign to overturn Humphrey’s Executor,” Barthold wrote. “The decision, which sustained a provision that insulated the five leaders of the [FTC] from being removed without cause, became the foundation for so-called independent agencies,” but it’s not “a strong decision,” he said. President Franklin Roosevelt saw it as “an effort to rebuke him” by a then-conservative SCOTUS, and “modern legal scholars tend to agree.”
China and Canada announced new retaliatory trade restrictions against the U.S. -- and Mexico announced plans to soon release its own set of countermeasures -- after President Donald Trump's administration on March 4 increased tariffs on goods from all three countries. Industry associations said the counter-duties could damage a range of American export industries, including shippers of agricultural products, spirits and other commercial goods.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett are likely the key votes as the U.S. Supreme Court considers Humphrey’s Executor, the 1935 decision that allows Congress to limit a president’s ability to remove senior officials, TechFreedom Internet Policy Counsel Corbin Barthold wrote Tuesday in The Bulwark. “For as long as modern conservative legal thought has existed, there has been a campaign to overturn Humphrey’s Executor,” Barthold wrote. “The decision, which sustained a provision that insulated the five leaders of the [FTC] from being removed without cause, became the foundation for so-called independent agencies,” but it’s not “a strong decision,” he said. President Franklin Roosevelt saw it as “an effort to rebuke him” by a then-conservative SCOTUS, and “modern legal scholars tend to agree.”
GSMA discussed the importance of so-called circular business models in the mobile carrier industry, with an emphasis on refurbishing old phones and putting them back into service, in a report released Wednesday. The group said circularity can be increased by “using recycled materials and renewable energy, increasing the lifespan of phones by repairing, reusing and refurbishing existing phones, designing phones to be more durable and repairable and providing adequate software and security support.” Industry can ensure that “no device ends up as waste by recovering and recycling phones that cannot be reused,” the report said. GSMA also expressed support Wednesday for the European Commission’s introduction of a Clean Industrial Deal. The wireless industry “has long been committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050, with network operators adopting climate targets and promoting sustainability.”
The outlook is uncertain about whether President Donald Trump will attempt to fire Democratic members of the FCC, as the administration asserts its authority over “so-called independent” agencies (see 2502190073). It’s unclear whether the FCC and its Democratic members, Anna Gomez and Geoffrey Starks, are in Trump’s sights, but no one is taking anything for granted from the current administration, industry experts said. Gomez is emerging as the more outspoken critic of the regime under Chairman Brendan Carr, especially on media items (see 2502200023).