Representatives of public interest and tribal groups met with an aide to FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty to ask that the FCC change course and create a tribal window prior to the AWS-3 reauction (see 2507140042). Commissioners are to vote July 24 on auction rules (see 2507030049). Attending the meeting were representatives of Public Knowledge, X-Lab, the Navajo Nation and the Southern California Tribal Chairmen’s Association.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr on Wednesday unveiled a full agenda for the Aug. 7 open meeting, leading off with proposed changes to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Also included are draft orders that Carr said were aimed at streamlining submarine cable licensing and satellite and earth station licensing. As will be true for the July meeting, cutting regulation will be a priority in August (see 2507030049).
The Senate was on track Wednesday to pass a revised version of the 2025 Rescissions Act (HR-4) that retains language to claw back $1.1 billion in advance CPB funding for FY 2026 and FY 2027, despite opposition from Democrats and a handful of Republicans. Public broadcasting supporters continued pressing for some Republicans who voted Tuesday night to clear procedural hurdles for bringing HR-4 to the floor to vote against passing the measure. Senators were voting Wednesday afternoon on Democrats’ amendments to HR-4 after rejecting bids to jettison the CPB defunding language.
Supporters of the House-passed 2025 Rescissions Act (HR-4) bid to claw back $1.1 billion of CPB’s advance funding for FY 2026 and FY 2027 got some momentum Tuesday as Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said he will back the measure. Rounds indicated he had reached a deal with the White House OMB on an alternative funding source to provide money to Native American radio stations, as expected (see 2507100071). Meanwhile, the House Appropriations Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Subcommittee advanced its FY26 budget bill, which would cut NTIA’s annual funding (see 2507140052).
Public Knowledge and the National Congress of American Indians are asking the FCC to rethink draft rules for the AWS-3 reauction, which don’t include a window giving tribes a first shot at spectrum. They met with an aide to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, according to a filing posted Monday in docket 25-70. Commissioners are slated to vote July 24 on auction rules (see 2507030049).
Oliver Semans, executive director of the Coalition of Large Tribes (COLT), asked the FCC to reconsider its plan not to offer a tribal priority window for the AWS-3 auction (see 2507030049). “I understand it is late in the process for the AWS-3 auction, which is fast approaching, but I write to express the importance of spectrum access to the COLT member tribes,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 25-59. The 2.5 GHz priority window was “a great success among" them.
The FCC on Thursday released draft items scheduled for votes at its July 24 open meeting, the second with a Republican majority in this Trump administration. Chairman Brendan Carr sketched out details of the meeting in a wide-ranging speech Wednesday (see 2507020036). The main focus will be cutting regulations and streamlining copper retirements and the pole attachment process. Among other items, the FCC would decline to adopt a tribal priority window prior to the AWS-3 reauction. Another draft order requires text providers to support a text-to-988 georouting requirement.
Twenty-three state attorneys general filed a joint amicus brief Monday supporting PBS and NPR lawsuits that challenge a White House executive order cutting public broadcasting funding. The brief -- from states including Colorado, Michigan, Arizona, New York and North Carolina -- argued that ending funding “would gravely harm Americans” by cutting access to emergency alerts and vital information. Rural areas and tribal communities “stand to suffer particular harms in the event public radio and television broadcasters discontinue or reduce the services they provide to those areas.” The White House’s order to cut funding usurps Congress’ authority, the filing added. “It is up to Congress, with its exclusive power of the purse, to decide whether and how to fund public media,” it said. “If the Executive Branch disagrees, the lawful course is to ask Congress to rescind appropriations, as it has now belatedly asked. But the Executive Branch’s actions challenged here, unilaterally terminating appropriations, are unlawful.”
The FCC’s Wireless Bureau and Office of Native Affairs and Policy will hold a videoconference July 15 to allow tribal groups to consult with agency staff about a CTIA petition (see 2503270059) that asked the FCC to streamline its rules involving the National Environmental Protection Act, said a public notice Monday. The consultation opportunity is “in furtherance of the Commission’s express desire to work with Tribal Nations” on proposals involving its environmental review processes, the notice said. “Attendance will be limited to elected and appointed leaders or duly appointed representatives of federally-recognized Tribal Nations and NHOs [Native Hawaiian Organizations], including Tribal Historic Preservation Officers.”
After a federal district court in Montana denied rehearing (see 2506020059), four members of the Blackfeet Nation appealed June 9 to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit as they continue to challenge the transfer of their International Emergency Economic Powers Act case out of the state. They argued again that the Constitution differentiates between commerce with foreign nations and commerce with Native Americans and that the trade court has only been granted jurisdiction over cases involving the former (Susan Webber v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 9th. Cir. # 25-2717).