Expect FAA restrictions on commercial space launches with an eye toward faster development in the commercial space sector, Pillsbury lawyers wrote last week. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has been critical of what he believes is the FAA's slow approach to SpaceX launch approvals, and his potential role in the President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration will be a "powerful impetus for a more flexible approach," they added.
BEAD policy revisions by President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration are inevitable, but any significant changes would disrupt timelines as states incorporate those changes into their awards process and final proposals, consultant Terry Chevalier wrote last week on LinkedIn. Policies not explicitly in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act -- such as the fiber preference, the need for affordable options and workforce or environmental regulations -- could be revised or changed, he noted. Those areas were magnets for criticism when BEAD rules were announced. As such, they are "logical targets" for changes, he said.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled Friday that a federal law banning TikTok unless its Chinese government-controlled owners divest from it is constitutional. TikTok, parent company ByteDance and a group of TikTok users had challenged the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. The ban “does not suppress content or require a certain mix of content” but “narrowly addresses foreign adversary control of an important medium of communication in the United States,” Judge Douglas Ginsburg wrote in the majority opinion. Because the law doesn’t target content of speech on TikTok but instead the ability of China to covertly manipulate that content, it “is wholly consonant with the First Amendment,” Ginsburg wrote. The evidence and judgment of Congress and the White House that TikTok is a national security threat “is entitled to significant weight,” Ginsburg added. “In this case, a foreign government threatens to distort free speech on an important medium of communication,” and the law would end China’s control over that medium, Ginsburg said. “Understood in that way, the Act actually vindicates the values that undergird the First Amendment.” A ban of the social media platform is set to take effect Jan. 19. Unless TikTok executes a qualified divestiture by then or the White House grants it a 90-day extension before then, “its platform will effectively be unavailable in the United States, at least for a time,” said the order. President-elect Donald Trump, who opposes the TikTok ban after kicking off the effort during his first term, takes office Jan. 20. House Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., and Communications Subcommittee Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio, praised the D.C. Circuit ruling as “a major win for the rule of law.” House Commerce unanimously advanced the TikTok divestiture measure in March (see 2403070063). “From the beginning, Congress gave TikTok a very clear choice: Divest from your parent company -- which is beholden to the Chinese Communist Party -- and remain operational in the U.S. or side with the CCP and face the consequence,” Rodgers and Latta said. “The United States will always stand up for our values and freedom, which is why the days of TikTok targeting, surveilling, and manipulating Americans are numbered.” FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, an early vocal proponent of the ban effort, didn’t comment.
A Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) official said Thursday that Congress and President-elect Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency advisory commission should consider consolidating what it said are 133 federal broadband programs into a single initiative. DOGE leads Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy met with a range of GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill Thursday as they continued eyeing how to trim up to $2 trillion in federal spending. In late November, Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, urged Musk and Ramaswamy to recommend that lawmakers “pull the plug” on the $42.5 billion NTIA-led BEAD program (see 2412030050). Continued existence of “133 broadband programs across 15 agencies is clearly excessive and wasteful,” Deborah Collier, CAGW vice president-policy and government affairs, said in a blog post. “It is time for these programs to be scrutinized, so taxpayers are no longer forced to pay for those that are inefficient and ineffective and support the few that will not only work as intended but also deploy broadband to every remaining unserved and underserved business and household across the country that wishes to be connected to the internet.” Ernst urged that DOGE and Congress assess each broadband program “by determining if it is operating as intended; if it duplicates or overlaps with another program or another agency; if the program’s administrators are requiring the money to be spent to achieve goals that are outside of the statute establishing the program; if the program’s goals are still current in today’s market; whether the program’s objectives can be achieved by the private sector; and if it can be consolidated with a better managed program in another agency.”
Insurance Marketing Coalition Limited v. FCC, which the 11th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court will hear Dec. 18 (see 2312130019), may prove significant, TroutmanAmin’s John Henson blogged Friday. “Part of the decision making will be how much deference does the FCC get in its rulemaking authority,” Henson said, noting the case (24-10277) examines agency authority under the Hobbs Act. “The Hobbs Act is having a moment and especially in the Eleventh Circuit,” he said. Approved 3-1 a year ago, the order adopted a one-to-one robotext consent policy (see 2312130019). Commissioner Nathan Simington dissented, citing the FCC's “factually thin record.” Henson noted the three judges hearing the case were appointed by President-elect Donald Trump during his first term -- Elizabeth Branch, Britt Grant and Robert Luck. They seem aligned with 11th Circuit precedent on limiting the reach of regulatory agencies, Henson said. “It would not stretch the limits of reason to think that the FCC’s 1:1 consent order was not properly enacted,” he said: “If that’s the case, then the Eleventh Circuit, might once again have an opportunity to strike a blow against Hobbs deference.” This term the U.S. Supreme Court will hear McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates v. McKesson, a Telephone Consumer Protection Act case from the 9th Circuit, examining the extent to which lower courts must defer to FCC decisions, which also has Hobbs Act implications (see 2410170015). The Hobbs Act gives the appeals courts exclusive jurisdiction to enjoin, set aside, suspend or determine the validity of some agency orders, including most FCC orders.
Faced with an increasingly vulnerable GPS system that rival global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) are eclipsing, the U.S. must align positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) policy with where the commercial sector is headed, PNT experts said during an FCBA panel in Washington Thursday. The lack of a national backup to GPS “is quite shocking,” but no one solution will address all needs, said Ed Mortimer, NextNav vice president-government affairs. He said a variety of commercial solutions are near but they require a policy environment open to competition.
Some congressional backers of the FCC’s Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program are beginning to see momentum turn toward including an additional $3.08 billion that will fully fund the initiative in an end-of-year legislative package (see 2411190064), but they aren’t guaranteeing success yet. Lawmakers and other rip-and-replace boosters hope congressional scrutiny of the Salt Typhoon Chinese government-affiliated effort at hacking U.S. telecom networks (see 2411190073) could be a tipping point for securing the funding after multiple spectrum legislative proposals, meant to pay for the program, stalled in recent years.
The incoming Donald Trump administration "could ... significantly scale back, or even dismantle" programs funded under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Chips Act, along with routine government expenditures, Pillsbury lawyers blogged Wednesday. They said it's likely the Trump White House will try diverting appropriated funds toward preferred policy priorities. In addition, the incoming administration might refuse to spend funds Congress appropriated and so "'starve' disfavored agencies or offices and further cost-cutting initiatives."
In her last address at the annual FCBA dinner Tuesday, outgoing FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel zinged the Donald Trump administration, fellow commissioners and herself, among others. She's been asked since the November election whether she would try being funny at this year's dinner, Rosenworcel responded, "Why would I start now?" Speaking of her post-FCC activities, she quipped, "I have concepts of a plan." Rosenworcel told the "telecom prom" crowd of more than 1,300 she might become a social media influencer and that she just made a video showing herself unboxing 6 GHz devices. Having an "alternative facts" administration won’t be a big stretch for the FCC, she said, because “for years we called the 10th floor the 8th floor." She noted incoming Chairman Brendan Carr made countless media appearances to curry favor with the Trump administration, but, Rosenworcel said, “I think he’s going to regret the decision to buy a Cybertruck.” She added, "Say goodbye to fluoridated water, say hello to ivermectin for all." Rosenworcel continued, "Say goodbye to remote work, say hello to the new Chipotle" a block from FCC headquarters. She ended her remarks with thanks and kudos to the FCC staff.
President-elect Donald Trump said Wednesday he’s nominating Gail Slater, an economic adviser to Vice President-elect JD Vance, to lead the DOJ Antitrust Division. Slater, who was Trump’s special assistant to the president for technology, telecommunications and cybersecurity policy at the National Economic Council during his first administration, “will help ensure that our competition laws are enforced, both vigorously and FAIRLY, with clear rules that facilitate, rather than stifle, the ingenuity of our greatest companies,” the president-elect said on Truth Social. Slater was previously Internet Association general counsel and worked at Fox and Roku. Trump took a swipe at major tech companies in announcing the Slater nomination. “Big Tech has run wild for years, stifling competition in our most innovative sector and, as we all know, using its market power to crack down on the rights of so many Americans, as well as those of Little Tech,” Trump said: “I was proud to fight these abuses in my First Term," and DOJ Antitrust “will continue that work under Gail’s leadership.”