Telecom Alert: May Open Commission Meeting; State AG’s Challenge CTIA NEPA Petition; CAF Limited Waiver; House E&C Approves Communications Budget Subtitle [Volume XXII, Issue 20]
FCC Releases May Open Commission Meeting Agenda
In its May Open Commission Meeting, the Commissioners will consider a Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking addressing updates to certification and oversight requirements for Telecommunications Certification Bodies (TCB), which manage the Commission’s equipment authorization programs. The Commission will also consider two additional Notice of Proposed Rulemakings addressing revised rules on disclosing foreign ownership interests in certain FCC licenses and authorizations, as well as exploring uses for the 12.7 GHz and 42-42.5 GHz bands as an alternative or complement for terrestrial wireless communications in those bands. For more information, please contact Wes Wright (wright@khlaw.com; 202.434.4239) or Tim Doughty (doughty@khlaw.com; 202-434-4271).
Nine State AG Offices Challenge CTIA NEPA Petition for Rulemaking
The Attorneys General offices of New York, Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin and Massachusetts jointly filed a letter with the Commission last Friday in opposition to CTIA’s petition for rulemaking requesting the Commission to streamline the agency’s NEPA regulations. The AG coalition criticized the petitions’ recommendations to remove considerations of “cumulative effects” which is typically required under the NEPA statute and respected under longstanding agency precedents. Additionally, the AG coalition raised issues with the petition abandoning historical preservation reviews for geographic-area deployments, stating that this action would exceed the FCC’s granted power under the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), which requires the FCC to consider all projects which require “a federal permit, license, or approval.” For more information, please contact Wes Wright (wright@khlaw.com; 202.434.4239) or Tim Doughty (doughty@khlaw.com; 202-434-4271).
WCB Grants Limited Waiver for Connect America Fund
Last Wednesday, the Wireline Competition Bureau (WCB) granted a limited waiver of the Connect America Fund’s (CAF) support reduction schedule for some recipients who failed to certify network testing before the July 1, 2024 deadline. The order states that while recipients who failed to certify would normally be subject to support reductions based on their level of noncompliance, the WCB found good cause to grant waivers of such penalties based on carrier’s notifications prior to the deadline that they were experiencing various technical issues regarding network testing and uploading data for certification. For these carriers, these notifications will be treated as equivalent to timely certification. The WCB also found good cause to waive the support reduction schedule for carriers who misinterpreted Commission correspondence on subpar testing results or had no subscribers to test in missing quarters of their annual certification. For more information, please contact Casey Lide (lide@khlaw.com; 202.434.4186) or Sean Stokes (stokes@khlaw.com; 410.458.1342).
House Energy & Commerce Approves Communications Provisions of Budget Reconciliation Bill
Last week, the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved the communications section of the proposed budget reconciliation bill. The communications subtitle includes provisions to extend the FCC’s auction authority, which expired in 2023, as well as instructs the Commission to produce revenues raised from auctioning at least 600 MHz of spectrum between the 1.3 – 10 Ghz bands within six years. The bill does not include dedicated portions of auction revenues for next-generation 911 (NG-911) deployments, which Democrat legislators wished to add as amendments to the subtitle. For more information, please contact Wes Wright (wright@khlaw.com; 202.434.4239) or Tim Doughty (doughty@khlaw.com; 202-434-4271).
To sign up for our weekly alert, please send us an email at telecomalert@khlaw.com and provide us with your name and email.