The FCC “reopened” for in-person meetings in June, but the agency hasn’t seen a wholesale return to them, and most meetings between staff and industry remain virtual, as they have been since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, based on a review of ex parte filings and interviews with lawyers and FCC officials. Some expect more in-person meetings starting after Labor Day, depending on what happens on COVID infection rates during August.
Andrew Schwartzman is senior counselor at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society (see 2207120054).
The FCC shouldn’t grant an extension request for reply filings in the Standard/Tegna proceeding, said Standard General, Tegna and Cox Media Group in a joint filing posted Tuesday. The request, from the NewsGuild and National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians sectors of the Communications Workers of America, plus Common Cause and the United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry, is for a two-week extension. A 30-day extension was granted earlier in the proceeding. “The Movants’ serial extension requests make clear that they merely seek to delay this proceeding,” said the broadcasters. Granting the motion would bring the length of time between the application filing and the reply deadline to “nearly double the historical average,” said the broadcasters. The anti-consolidation groups seek the extension due to the complexity of the matter, the difficulty of accessing protected information, the short number of business days in the filing period, and “unavoidable medical treatments” required by Andrew Schwartzman, counsel for the two unions. Schwartzman is also senior counselor at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. None of those reasons is acceptable grounds for further delay, the broadcasters said. “The Motion itself is indicative that Petitioners are pooling resources in this proceeding,” said Tegna, Standard General, and CMG. “The requested extension is therefore not justified by a single lawyer’s need for an out-patient medical procedure.”
In what's viewed as a major decision by the Supreme Court Thursday, justices didn’t overrule the Chevron doctrine but appeared to further clamp down on the ability of agencies like the FCC to regulate, absent clear direction from Congress. The opinion came in an environmental case, West Virginia v. EPA. Legal experts said the 6-3 decision likely presages that courts would overturn an FCC decision to classify broadband under Title II of the Communications Act.
Apollo Global Management and its subsidiary Cox Media Group’s noncontrolling shares in the company created by Standard’s $8.6 billion buy of Tegna wouldn’t give them influence over it or on retransmission consent negotiations, said a response from all four companies to the FCC Media Bureau, posted Tuesday. “The companies will continue to compete directly and vigorously in the handful of markets where both own stations,” said the response filing.
The FCC is open, as of Thursday, for in-person meetings, but most industry and FCC officials don’t expect a large early wave of visits to the FCC, with many meetings remaining virtual. Aides to the FCC commissioners told us Friday they haven't been getting calls for in-person visits since Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced the reopening Wednesday (see 2206080055).
Public interest advocates urged states to start planning now if they haven’t already for NTIA’s broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program, during a Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition webinar Thursday on the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act’s broadband funding. Panelists also said NTIA should take a technology- and provider-neutral approach to setting eligibility requirements for the middle mile and other programs.
California’s net neutrality law survived an appeal by ISP associations at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The panel’s Friday opinion that the FCC can’t preempt states after giving up its own broadband authority could affect ISP challenges of Vermont net neutrality and New York state affordable broadband laws, said legal experts.
A draft FCC NPRM to adopt consumer broadband labels is expected to be unanimously approved during Thursday’s commissioners’ meeting, aides told us. The item is likely to take up the bulk of the meeting as most agenda items were adopted in advance (see 2201260016).
Industry and advocacy groups are preparing comments by the Jan. 18 deadline for an FCC notice of inquiry on its report to Congress on the future of USF (see 2112160074). The document is due by August on the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act’s impact on existing programs and what they should look like moving forward.