The House voted 366-34 Friday evening to pass a revised version of the American Relief Act (HR-10545), likely averting a government shutdown that was otherwise set to occur at midnight. The Senate was viewed as likely to pass the measure later Friday, and the White House said President Joe Biden would sign it. The House had voted 174-235 Thursday night against the previous HR-10515, which combined a stripped-down CR and two-year debt ceiling suspension (see 2412190070), receiving President-elect Donald Trump’s endorsement. HR. The approved measure jettisons the debt-ceiling suspension but preserves a farm bill extension through Sept. 30, 2025, and disaster relief funding. Trump had demanded immediate debt ceiling action, along with his criticism of congressional leaders’ initial, more expansive CR proposal earlier last week (see 2412170081).
House Republicans reached an agreement Thursday afternoon on the American Relief Act, a legislative package combining a continuing resolution that extends appropriations through March 14 with a two-year suspension of the debt ceiling. The new CR came a day after some GOP-affiliated lawmakers tanked an earlier proposal that included language from the NTIA Reauthorization Act (HR-4510) and several telecom and tech bills (see 2412180033). The new CR omits those measures' language but includes an extension of some temporary rules changes around Medicare recipients’ eligibility for telehealth services, which Congress enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic (see 2006150032). Federal appropriations are set to lapse Friday night unless Congress approves a CR. GOP opposition to the earlier CR deal arose Wednesday afternoon after President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance criticized the proposal and urged Congress to pass a “streamlined” measure “WITHOUT DEMOCRAT GIVEAWAYS combined with an increase in the debt ceiling.” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, co-lead of Trump's Department of Government Efficiency advisory group, also repeatedly slammed the earlier CR. It’s unclear whether congressional Democrats back the new GOP-led CR deal. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York earlier indicated congressional Democrats would be unlikely to support a clean CR and said Thursday that party members were a “hard pass” on moving to address the debt ceiling in conjunction with extending appropriations. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit advised Thursday that it will "continue normal operations" if there is a federal government shutdown, with cases calendared for oral argument in January proceeding as scheduled. It said the U.S. Courts' Administrative Office would use carryover funds and fees to keep the courts running for several weeks.
President-elect Donald Trump and ABC agreed to a $15 million settlement in Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the network over comments anchor George Stephanopoulos made during a March 10 broadcast about a jury verdict on sexual assault allegations that journalist E. Jean Carroll brought against Trump. The U.S. District Court for Southern Florida issued an order closing the defamation case Monday. ABC will pay $15 million as a contribution to the foundation responsible for constructing Trump’s presidential library, the settlement agreement said. The network must also attach a note to an article on ABC's site stating that ABC News and Stephanopoulos regret the anchor's statements. Under the settlement, the network also agreed to pay $1 million for Trump’s legal costs. The defamation complaint was based on a Stephanopoulos interview with Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., on his Sunday ABC television show. Stephanopoulos repeatedly said during the interview that multiple juries found Trump liable for raping Carroll. In 2023, a federal jury found Trump liable for sexually assaulting Carroll but not for raping her. Generally, it is considered difficult for public officials to win defamation cases, because under U.S. Supreme Court precedent it requires proof that the journalist's statement was made with malice. As such, the bar for bringing such a case is “high” but not “insurmountable,” said Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David Oxenford in a blog post about a defamation case against Fox. Some see ABC’s settlement as connected to Trump’s impending presidency and his history of threats against the network. Trump has repeatedly threatened the network’s “license” (see 2409230022) and a conservative group has filed an FCC complaint against the network over its hosting of a 2024 presidential debate. ABC’s decision to settle the case instead of fighting it could “increase the possibility of additional lawsuits -- or threats of lawsuits -- from government officials who probably couldn’t actually win a defamation lawsuit because of the strong First Amendment protections that exist when speaking about those public officials or public figures generally,” said Freedom Forum First Amendment specialist Kevin Goldberg in an interview Monday. ABC didn’t comment.
Facing SEC requirements of prompt public disclosure of material cybersecurity incidents, many companies are reporting out of fear of violating the rules, sometimes going public with nonmaterial incidents, cybersecurity experts say. In an FCBA CLE Monday, Wiley cybersecurity lawyer Josh Waldman said the SEC's lawsuit against SolarWinds over the software company's disclosure practices seemed like it would trigger vast under- or overreporting, with the latter seemingly emerging as the dominant trend. While there's a willingness among agencies and Congress to harmonize different agencies' privacy, data security and cybersecurity rules, there's not a clear way of doing so, cybersecurity experts said.
U.S. wireless carriers are ending 2024 strongly, with share prices of T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon up sharply, but tougher times may be coming, MoffettNathanson’s Craig Moffett said Friday in a note to investors. “Industry post-paid net adds remained well above population growth, allowing each of the Big Three to meet or beat their subscriber targets,” the note said: “Handset upgrade rates started the year at an almost implausibly low level … and then moved even lower from there. Low upgrade rates meant low churn, modest competitive intensity, low customer acquisition and retention expense, and high margins.” But one potential threat to net adds is the promise of President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration's stance on immigration, Moffett said. That's a potential problem because immigration is a major contributor to industry unit growth, he said. Such growth is "likely to change with tighter borders and would be impacted still more by promised deportations.” Yet Apple investors are betting that more consumers will change their handsets, he said. "There is a clear mismatch between the expectations of Telecom investors, who appear to expect no acceleration in upgrade rates, and Apple investors, who appear to expect a dramatic one." Moffett also warned that the big carriers may be emphasizing convergence too much: “AT&T’s fiber footprint today reaches just 12% of households and will likely never reach more than 25%. Verizon’s fiber coverage today is about 9%, and even with Frontier and their own expanded build program, [it] is targeting only about 18% of housing units by 2028. T-Mobile, with Lumos and Metronet combined, covers less than 2% of housing units today with fiber and has no plausible path beyond about 9% by the end of the decade.” Leaning too hard into convergence, carriers “will inevitably raise consumer expectations and demand for converged bundles … that, by and large, they are unable to offer.”
President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration will likely change BEAD rules, making the program more open to satellite and unlicensed fixed wireless access, connectivity policy experts tell us. A variety of policy statements from Republicans, including Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz (R-Texas) (see 2411040030), suggest a forthcoming policy change, said Chris Mitchell, Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) director-community broadband networks.
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel appears intent on closing several outstanding wireless issues in her final weeks at the helm, but industry experts said it appears unlikely she will tackle controversial items or launch anything. That approach differs from the way former FCC Chairman Ajit Pai conducted business at the end of the first Donald Trump presidency.
Parts of the FCC’s August order approving a 5G Fund auction are effective Jan. 13 said a notice for Friday’s Federal Register. The auction is potentially in doubt. The order was approved 4-1 with Commissioner Brendan Carr dissenting. Carr was concerned that the FCC should have waited for additional clarity on what NTIA's BEAD program will support before holding a 5G Fund auction (see 2408290041). President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Carr to lead the FCC. “It is never wise to build on top of a faulty foundation,” Carr said in August: “The government’s focus today should be on fixing the fundamental flaws with BEAD and getting that program back on track.” He called for the elimination of BEAD’s diversity, equity and inclusion requirements, “climate change agenda, unlawful price controls, technology preferences, and the wish list of progressive policy goals that have nothing to do with quickly connecting Americans.”
Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said Thursday the panel will “swiftly” go through the vetting and confirmation process for Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick, President-elect Donald Trump’s planned commerce secretary nominee, and other current and potential picks once Cruz becomes chairman in January. Trump said Wednesday night he plans to name former Arizona Senate and gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake (R) to lead Voice of America. In addition, he said he would nominate a new head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, who will technically be the one to appoint Lake to the VOA role. Current VOA Director Michael Abramowitz took office over the summer (see 2404190020). “We will both thoroughly vet new nominees and … swiftly confirm them, responsibly carrying out the Senate’s advice and consent role,” Cruz said ahead of Senate Commerce votes to advance a raft of Biden nominees. Senate Commerce in part advanced CPB board nominees Felix Sanchez and Adam White (see 2412060051). Senate Commerce and “others have often even held nomination hearings prior to the inauguration” of a president, including in the lead-up to when President Joe Biden took office in 2021, Cruz said. The panel has also “voted on cabinet nominees … within a week of their hearings.” He intends “to follow a similar practice for nominations next Congress and to work to move qualified and competent nominees expeditiously.”
The U.S. Supreme Court decision doing away with Chevron deference won’t grind the next FCC to a halt but could prompt congressional action on the USF, former FCC officials said during panel discussions Thursday at Broadband Breakfast’s "Broadband in the Trump Administration" event.