Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and some other congressional leaders are objecting to a compromise version of the FY 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (HR-5009) released Saturday night with language allocating $3.08 billion to fully fund the FCC’s Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program (see 2412070001). The leaders’ concerns complicate plans for HR-5009's passage. House leaders are eyeing a vote on the measure this week. Meanwhile, some lawmakers want to attach the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act (HR-8449) and permanently lift some telehealth restrictions via other end-of-year measures.
The House and Senate Armed Services committees released a compromise version of the FY 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (HR-5009) Saturday night with language allocating $3.08 billion to fully fund the FCC’s Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program, as expected. The measure also provides up to $500 million through 2033 to the Commerce Department for regional tech hubs. The language in HR-5009, originating from the Spectrum and Secure Technology and Innovation Act (S-4207), would give the FCC $3.08 billion in Treasury Department borrowing authority for rip and replace reimbursements.
Communications Daily is tracking the lawsuits below involving appeals of FCC actions. New cases since the last update are marked with a *.
Communications Daily is tracking the lawsuits below involving appeals of FCC actions.
The FCC is seeking comment on an NAB petition for an additional extension of a waiver of a 2013 rule requiring that broadcasters provide audio description on a second audio stream of emergency information conveyed through graphics, said a public notice in docket 12-107 Monday. Compliance with the 2013 rule was originally required by 2015, but the agency granted an 18-month waiver and has repeatedly extended it, most recently by 18 months in 2023. The waiver is currently set to expire Tuesday. In addition to the requested extension of the waiver, NAB is seeking a rule change specifying "that compliance is fulfilled if a station provides textual crawls that provide emergency information duplicative or equivalent to the information conveyed by the visual image.” It “remains impossible for stations to continue to provide important emergency information to viewers while complying with the audible crawl rule as written,” NAB said. Comments are due in docket 12-107 on Dec. 26, replies Jan. 9.
The federal government defended the FCC’s decision denying petitions for declaratory ruling on the agency’s over-the-air reception device (OTARD) rules in response to Indian Peak Properties' challenge in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (see 2405060035). The FCC declined to step in following a dispute between the company and Rancho Palos Verdes, California (see 2410290011). “The Commission correctly construed the Rule to require a regular human presence at an antenna’s location,” the government said. “This requirement is evident from the Rule’s text and the Commission’s historic treatment of the Rule, and is consistent with Congress’s original purpose of protecting viewers’ access to video programming.” The pleading discussed the dispute's long history. After a city inspection revealed at least 11 antennas on the property in question, “plus other equipment on the roof, the City ordered Indian Peak to remove all but five antennas, and the parties began several years of discussions,” the pleading said, noting that in 2020, after suing the city, Indian Peak sought FCC review. The pleading said the commission’s determination “that Indian Peak failed to adequately allege that its antenna use fell within the Rule’s scope was supported by substantial evidence: Indian Peak repeatedly told the Commission that no one lived at the Property, emphasized the importance of remote access, and offered vague and inconsistent descriptions of how the Property was used.” From its origins protecting viewers’ access to satellite video at their homes, the OTARD rule “has always contemplated that a protected antenna serve a human end user at the antenna’s location,” the government said. “Indeed, if the Rule did not contain a human-presence requirement, it would necessarily extend to antennas on unoccupied buildings -- a result which nothing in the Rule’s history supports.”
In an investors' note Monday, New Street’s Blair Levin discussed reasons why the U.S. Supreme Court may overturn the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' 9-7 en banc decision, which found the USF contribution factor is a "misbegotten tax.” Consumers' Research, a conservative group, challenged the contribution factor in the 5th Circuit and other courts.
The FCC submarine cable NPRM now asks about ensuring cable licensees don't use equipment or services from entities on the agency’s covered list of organizations that pose a U.S. security threat. Commissioners at their open meeting Thursday unanimously approved the subsea cable NPRM, as expected (see 2411120001), as well as a robocall third-party authentication order. They also approved 5-0 an order creating a permanent process for authorizing content-originating FM boosters, which let broadcasters geotarget content within their broadcast reach for up to three minutes per hour (see 2411140053). The meeting saw the four regular commissioners praise Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, who said Thursday she would step down Jan. 20, the date the next presidential administration takes power. Minority Commissioner Brendan Carr, who is slated to become chair (see 2411180059), discussed his agenda with media (see 2411210028).
Communications Daily is tracking the lawsuits below involving appeals of FCC actions.
Kepler Communications, with eight non-geostationary orbit satellites in space, is asking FCC approval to launch another 10 with optical intersatellite links and create a consolidated space data relay network. In an FCC Space Bureau application posted Tuesday to modify its U.S. market access grant and another pending U.S. market access application, Kepler said the FCC's five-year deorbit rule, adopted in 2022, necessitated the company rethinking its previously authorized cubesat system as they wouldn't deorbit within five years of the end of their missions. The company said the steeply escalating licensing fees for systems seeking U.S. market access also made its original plans for a second, separate satellite system not feasible. As a result, it needed to consider one consolidated system. Kepler said the launch of 10 second-generation satellites is expected in Q3 2025.