Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is pressing Republican FCC Commissioners Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington to insist the full commission review requests from restructuring radio group Audacy for expedited foreign-ownership review as part of the purchase of its stock by George Soros-affiliated entities (see 2404230054). In July, Cruz wrote Democratic Commissioners Anna Gomez and Geoffrey Starks, urging that they push for a full FCC vote. “Considering the large number of stations involved, the presence of foreign ownership interests in excess of limits specified in federal law, and the deal’s timing in the final run-up to the Presidential election, I argued that a thorough vetting by the full Commission was both an expected duty of the officeholder and necessary to protect the interests of the American public,” Cruz said Friday in a letter to Simington. Cruz's letter to Carr wasn't available. Gomez and Starks “indicated they were eager to avoid accountability by letting faceless, unelected bureaucrats who were not accountable to the public or the Senate rubber-stamp the deal under the guise of delegated authority.” The Democratic commissioners “appear willing to turn a blind eye to Chairwoman [Jessica] Rosenworcel’s pattern of abusing delegated authority,” Cruz said: “This was seen most starkly in the Commission’s mishandling of” the terminated Standard General/Tegna deal (see 2306010077), “where instead of holding an open and transparent Commission-level vote, [Rosenworcel] violated FCC precedent and quashed the deal through a bureau-level order.” He asked Carr and Simington to respond by Aug. 23 about whether they back a full FCC vote on Audacy.
Tropical Storm Debby knocked out cable and wireline service for 7,408 subscribers, an increase from 4,875 on Thursday, the FCC said in Friday’s disaster information reporting system report (see 2408060053). The FCC activated the mandatory disaster response initiative for 34 Virginia counties on Friday. The storm left .3% of North Carolina and .1% of South Carolina cellsites down, a slight improvement from Thursday. No public safety answering points or TV or radio stations were reported down.
The FCC "improperly heightened the standard of review that it had previously promised to apply to winning bidders in its Rural Digital Opportunity Fund auction and relied on vague and unwritten criteria to deny LTD Broadband hundreds of millions of dollars that it planned to use to deploy broadband to rural America," the company told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (docket 24-1017). In a reply brief Friday, LTD said the FCC applied a standard that was "more stringent than any it had ever applied" (see 2408060031). The commission "faulted LTD Broadband for not meeting granular criteria that nowhere appear on the face of its rules," LTD noted, adding the company "vigorously contests the FCC's conclusion" that it's "unqualified for RDOF support." LTD asked that the court to reinstate its long-form application, noting the FCC's "failure to even consider partial authorization for a smaller footprint is particularly remarkable."
Facing $2 billion in debt coming due in November and likely short of the cash on hand it will need to operate in Q4, EchoStar plans to use spectrum assets to raise the funding it needs, CEO Hamid Akhavan said Friday as the company announced Q2 earnings. EchoStar has more spectrum than it needs for its wireless plans, Akhavan said. But the company doesn't intend to dispose or relinquish ownership of spectrum holdings, he said. Instead, it's considering financing options that don't require selling.
The FCC’s NPRM on AI and robocalls that commissioners approved Wednesday saw numerous changes from its draft version, beyond the addition of a notice of inquiry (see 2408070037). Incompas and the Cloud Communications Alliance asked the FCC to move parts to a NOI, citing the lack of specific proposals (see 2408050029). “The item itself is seemingly more of an investigation into the state of AI technologies rather than a series of specific proposals,” they said.
Backers of resurrecting the FCC’s affordable connectivity program are tempering their expectations about how much a pair of July developments may increase Congress’ appetite for injecting stopgap funding into the lapsed initiative this year. The Senate Commerce Committee approved a surprise amendment July 31 to the Proper Leadership to Align Networks for Broadband Act (S-2238) that would allocate $7 billion to ACP for FY 2024 (see 2407310048). Former President Donald Trump earlier that month selected Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, a Republican who backed ACP funding in the face of opposition from party leaders, as his running mate (see 2407150062).
The FCC Media Bureau approved a waiver from Warner Bros. Discovery for TBS and TNT on the agency's audio description rules (see 2406210030). In a docket 11-43 order Thursday, the bureau said WBD has committed to an amount of audio description on the channels and on TruTV that exceeds the current quarterly requirement. It also said the unopposed petition saw support from advocates for blind and visually impaired consumers.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision eliminating Chevron deference shouldn’t affect the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' approach to Gray Television’s appeal of an FCC $518,000 forfeiture order, the agency said in a supplemental brief Wednesday. The 11th Circuit requested supplemental briefs from the FCC and Gray after SCOTUS’ Loper Bright v. Raimondo decision (see 2407110058). The agency applied the best reading of its rule against affiliate swaps and so doesn’t require special deference for the court to rule in its favor, the FCC said. Gray’s argument that its purchase of a station affiliation in Anchorage didn't “result” in a top-four duopoly because Gray already owned such a duopoly “is not the best or most natural reading” of the text of the FCC’s rules, the agency said. The court should also favor the FCC’s interpretation of its own rules under another SCOTUS precedent that wasn’t affected by Loper Bright, Kisor v. Wilkie, the FCC said. Kisor requires that the court consider a regulation as if there were no agency interpretation, but if ambiguity remains, it allows the court to conclude that the agency interpretation may be appropriate. Gray has argued that the Loper Bright decision invalidated Kisor precedent. “This Court is not the proper forum to revisit binding Supreme Court precedent,” the FCC said. The 11th Circuit shouldn’t consider Gray’s arguments that the FCC doesn’t have statutory authority over the sale of a station’s affiliation because Gray didn’t raise the argument earlier in the case and because it's outside the scope of the supplemental brief the court requested, the agency said. Gray “improperly expanded the scope of the supplemental briefing, and the court may not reach arguments on which the FCC had no ‘opportunity to pass’ in the administrative proceedings,” the FCC said.
OMB approved for three years collection of information associated with the FCC's revised rules for numbering authorization applications, a notice in Thursday's Federal Register said. Commissioners approved the modified rules in September for interconnected VoIP providers seeking direct numbering access (see 2309210055).
Rather than wait for congressional action on georouting of 988 calls, the FCC and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration should "take immediate, decisive action," mental health organizations said in a docket 18-336 filing Thursday. The advocates said that while the agencies have encouraged wireless carriers and industry associations to identify a 988 georouting solution, "it is simply not enough -- especially when we know there are existing solutions at the ready today." Signers of the letter include the American Psychiatric Association, National Alliance on Mental Illness, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and American Mental Health Counselors Association. The FCC 5-0 adopted a 988 georouting NPRM in April (see 2404250054).