FCC Delays Post-Shutdown Deadlines Amid Anticipated Glut of Incoming Filings
The FCC began to restart operations Thursday that were suspended during the government shutdown (see 2509300060) but immediately extended most post-shutdown deadlines in a bid to control the anticipated avalanche of filings. The agency furloughed 81% of its staff when the shutdown began Oct. 1 (see 2510010065). FCC staff and industry attorneys had raised alarms about what they saw as unclear filing requirements (see 2510160044). The 42-day shutdown, the longest in modern U.S. history, ended late Wednesday night when President Donald Trump signed a legislative package that restored federal appropriations at FY 2025 levels through Jan. 30.
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The House voted 222-209 Wednesday night to accept Senate-passed changes to the legislation, despite continued complaints about language that allows senators to sue federal agencies over reports that the FBI and former Special Counsel Jack Smith accessed phone records of several Republicans without notice as part of the probe of the Jan. 6 Capitol siege (see 2510170039).
House GOP leaders set a vote for as soon as Monday night on a bill to repeal the senators-only lawsuit language (HR-6019). Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters Wednesday night that he spoke with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., to emphasize the opposition to the upper chamber’s language. “I was very angry about it, [and] I think [Thune] regretted the way it was done,” Johnson said. “I didn’t ask him for any commitment” for the Senate to agree to repealing the language “at that time, [but] I’m going to expect” senators to agree.
The package also enacted FY 2026 funding for the Agriculture Department, including $108.5 million for its rural broadband programs (see 2511100037) and restarted Medicare reimbursements for qualified telehealth spending. The American Telemedicine Association praised lawmakers Thursday for restarting the reimbursements in the package, which also extended waivers of some rules for what telehealth services qualify for Medicare reimbursements.
In a public notice Thursday, the FCC extended most post-shutdown deadlines until “at least” Tuesday. The agency’s original guidance said filings with deadlines during the shutdown would be due on the first business day following the resumption of normal operations. “Given the unprecedented length of the shutdown, we anticipate that the public will have an exceptionally large number of filings and submissions that they will want to provide the FCC over a relatively short period of time as we resume normal operations,” the Thursday notice said.
The FCC posted more than 500 filings Thursday that were submitted during the shutdown to protest the agency's wireless infrastructure NPRM. Commissioners approved the NPRM 3-0 in September (see 2509300063) as part of Carr’s Build America Better agenda. One filing from Murrieta, California, Mayor Cindy Warren argued that the proposal would “erode local control, undermine established planning and public investments, contradict the Commission’s own progress narrative, shift costs to local governments, and diminish environmental and community safeguards.”
'Complications May Arise'
The FCC’s notice also said it will issue further guidance before Tuesday that could provide “additional flexibility” for “certain specific systems, matters, and programs, including the FCC’s Universal Licensing System and Equipment Authorization System.” The extension doesn’t apply to filings in the Network Outage Reporting System or Disaster Information Reporting System or to some spectrum auction-related filings, the notice said.
The FCC said its staff “will work in good faith with parties to resolve and address issues that arise with an influx of new filings and requests.” In past shutdowns and other occasions where many filings were due on the same day, the FCC’s computer filing systems have experienced slowdowns and crashes (see 2511100022). “We anticipate that complications may arise in some cases,” the notice said. “FCC staff will bring a flexible, commonsense approach to resolving the range of issues that may arise upon re-opening in these circumstances.”
Given how long the shutdown was and how many databases the FCC took offline, its systems likely won’t be able to accept the big volume of backlogged filings that could be coming Friday, Womble Bond lawyers Carri Bennet and Richard Cameron said Wednesday. They noted that the agency reacted after the 2018-19 shutdown by setting up a multitiered system of filing due dates, with most submissions getting about 10 days after the reopening. The lawyers said the FCC can extend or waive deadlines it controls but doesn’t have as much flexibility with those imposed by statute.
The FCC immediately after the 2018-19 shutdown was able to accept filings required to meet statutory deadlines one day after its actual reopening to account for the disruption, Bennet and Cameron said. The agency likely will take a similar approach this time. Even if it creates a window for “catch up” filings, its electronic filing systems will probably become overwhelmed by the submissions volume “and may crash.” The FCC will likely prioritize processing pending transactions but may delay transaction consents, they added.