The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Tuesday upheld a lower court’s dismissal of additional False Claims Act actions brought by lawyers Mark O’Connor and Sara Leibman, who allege that UScellular and other defendants fraudulently claimed that Frequency Advantage was a “very small business” qualifying for “designated entity” status and a bidding discount in FCC auctions (see 2303280061). Other defendants include King Street Wireless, Carroll Wireless and Barat Wireless. The case “must be dismissed because the frauds Leibman and O’Connor allege were publicly disclosed in an earlier lawsuit, and they are not original sources of the information,” Judge Neomi Rao wrote in a decision in docket 23-7044. “We therefore affirm the judgment of the district court.”
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., filed the Defund Government Sponsored Propaganda Act on Tuesday in a bid to end federal funding for NPR and PBS. The measure would also claw back CPB’s advance funding for fiscal years 2025, 2026 and 2027 “to reduce the public debt.” The legislation’s filing follows FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s January call for the Enforcement and Media bureaus to investigate PBS and NPR member stations over possible underwriting violations (see 2501300065). The House Oversight Delivering on Government Efficiency Subcommittee is eyeing a March hearing on public broadcasting (see 2502030064). House Appropriations Committee Republicans attempted to end CPB's advance funding in 2023 and 2024 (see 2407100060). “Americans have hundreds of sources of news and commentary, and they don’t need politically biased, taxpayer-funded media choosing what they should see and hear,” Lee said. “PBS and NPR are free to compete in the marketplace of ideas using donations, but their public subsidy should end.” NPR and PBS “have chosen advocacy over accuracy, using public dollars to promote a political agenda rather than report the facts,” Tenney said. “The Defund Government Sponsored Propaganda Act ensures that federal funding is no longer used to perpetuate the blatant media bias that has overtaken these platforms.” NPR and PBS didn't immediately comment.
Three conservative groups on Tuesday urged the U.S. Supreme Court to use its upcoming decision in FCC v. Consumers' Research to provide clarity on when agencies can delegate authority to private companies. SCOTUS will consider the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ 9-7 en banc decision invalidating part of the USF program (see 2501090045), in part because the FCC delegated authority for overseeing the program to the Universal Service Administrative Co. (see 2412100060).
A legal challenge to the FCC's over-the-air reception devices (OTARD) rules might face procedural problems, a federal judge said Tuesday. But the three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit also seemed skeptical during oral argument (docket 24-1108) of the commission's creating a "human presence" requirement in its OTARD rules for Indian Peak Properties. The company is appealing an FCC order that denied its petitions for declaratory ruling. Indian Peak was seeking a federal preemption under the OTARD rule of a Rancho Palos Verdes, California, decision to revoke its local permit for the deployment of rooftop antennas on a property (see 2405060035).
The FCC faces pressure to find a better, more market-oriented way to reallocate spectrum, but there are no obvious solutions in sight, auction experts said Tuesday. The discussion, during a Technology Policy Institute webinar, the first in its series on spectrum policy, comes as the fight over spectrum heats up, and the administration looks at the future of the lower 3 GHz, 7/8 GHz and other bands (see 2502100047).
Comcast confirmed Tuesday that FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has asked the Enforcement Bureau to launch a probe of its and subsidiary NBCUniversal’s diversity, equity and inclusion programs to determine if they violate equal employment opportunity laws. The move is Carr’s latest foray against U.S. broadcasters, including probes of CBS, NPR and PBS (see 2502050063 and 2501300065), since he became FCC chairman Jan. 20. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., railed against the FCC and other federal agencies Tuesday for collectively “waging a relentless war on online speech and independent journalism” in the weeks since President Donald Trump returned to office last month.
Expect big changes to BEAD, with the Donald Trump administration and congressional Republicans rewriting the rules and putting more emphasis on efficient use of funding, tech policy experts said Tuesday at the annual State of the Net conference. Consultant Mike O'Rielly, a former FCC commissioner, said NTIA isn't likely to process any state's final proposals in the near term as it awaits where the administration and Congress take BEAD. States must be flexible and ready to pivot once that new direction becomes clear, he added.
Changes in the office of FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington: David Brodian promoted to senior legal adviser and Sara Rahmjoo to legal adviser; policy adviser Michael Sweeney leaves ... Nokia names Justin Hotard, ex-Intel, president and CEO, effective April 1, replacing Pekka Lundmark … Afiniti selects Jerome Kapelus, ex-PWCC Marketplace, as CEO, replacing Hassan Afzal, remaining as strategic adviser … Joseph Cramer, ex-Boeing and former FCC adviser, joins Freedom Technologies as senior vice president-international, new position.
Sateliot wants the FCC to revisit its Space Bureau's January decision dismissing the company's U.S. market access petition. In an application for review filed Friday, Sateliot said the bureau's rejection of the application to offer IoT services in the 2 GHz mobile satellite service (MSS) band, due to unavailability of that spectrum (see 2501080037), runs contrary to the FCC's 2019 smallsat order. That order lets applicants seeking authority under the streamlined small satellite processing rules apply for MSS frequencies, it said. Sateliot argued that the bureau was wrong in saying there wasn't enough information in the record to determine if Sateliot's system would meet the spectrum-sharing requirements under the smallsat processing rules.
CBS’ editing of an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris last November “looks like editorial judgment, not an instance of splicing footage to create a misleading response that never happened,” and the FCC probe into CBS isn’t justified by the previous administration’s action against Fox, the Wall Street Journal editorial board said in a column Sunday. News Corp. owns the WSJ and Fox. In a recent interview, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr pointed to the previous FCC’s proceeding on WTXF Philadelphia as setting the precedent for the agency’s current news distortion investigation against CBS (see 2502060059).