NTIA joined the submarine cable industry in voicing concerns about parts of the FCC's proposed rewrite of its subsea cable rules. In docket 24-523 reply comments this week, NTIA, the subsea cable industry and allies called instead for using the proceeding to streamline existing rules. FCC Commissioners adopted the subsea cable NPRM unanimously in November (see 2411210006). Initial comments on the NPRM saw pushback from industry (see 2504150002).

Counsel for four members of the Blackfeet Nation tribe challenging certain tariff action taken by President Donald Trump said the Supreme Court's recent decision in AARP v. Trump supports its interlocutory appeal of a Montana district court's decision to transfer the case to the Court of International Trade (Susan Webber v. U.S. Dep't of Homeland Sec., 9th Cir. # 25-2717).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit will launch a new caption-generation utility for filers May 27, the court announced. The new feature will let parties easily generate "the most up-to-date version of the case caption." It will be found under the Utilities tab on the landing screen after logging into CM/ECF, the court said.

The Court of International Trade on May 19 sent back the Commerce Department's circumvention finding on solar cells from Vietnam just days after sustaining two circumvention findings on solar cells from Thailand and Cambodia. Judge M. Miller Baker said in the Vietnamese circumvention case that Commerce "arbitrarily treated its adverse facts available finding as the administrative equivalent of landing on 'Go to Jail.'"

Attorneys general from nine states on Friday opposed CTIA’s request for a rulemaking to update regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The proposal faces extensive opposition (see 2505010019), but CTIA said it found broad support for moving forward. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has promised to focus on streamlining regulation and cutting red tape (see 2503030040). Reply comments were posted Friday in RM-12003.

The Court of International Trade on May 19 sent back the Commerce Department's finding that solar cells from Vietnam circumvented the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on solar cells from China. Judge M. Miller Baker said that Commerce "arbitrarily treated its adverse facts available finding" on one of the mandatory respondents "as the administrative equivalent of landing on 'Go to Jail'" for the unexamined companies. The agency still has to address every statutory circumvention factor and balance them, the judge said. However, Baker upheld the ability of Commerce to extend the AFA determination to the cooperating unexamined companies, since the agency did so on the basis that the uncooperating party accounted for a "significant volume of Vietnamese solar cells."

Five senators, both Republicans and Democrats, asked Jamieson Greer, then the U.S. trade representative nominee, to advocate for a formal exclusion process to tariffs, as was done for the Section 301 tariffs in Trump's first term. These written exchanges were recently posted at the Senate Finance Committee website, long after Greer's confirmation vote.

The FCC Public Safety Bureau sought comment Wednesday on a request by the Monsey Fire District in New York to modify its private land mobile radio system by adding an 800 MHz specialized mobile radio to its two-site conventional system. Comments are due May 29, replies June 13, in universal licensing system file number 0011089434. The FCC posted the notice on its website's homepage.

The vast private capital investment in fiber is focused almost exclusively on getting it into the hands of the major wireless carriers since that is seen as a safer investment, Ting CEO Elliot Noss said Wednesday. Speaking at an American Association for Public Broadband and New America conference in Washington, he said municipal broadband projects can't count on private equity financing. Municipal broadband network operators also said a big challenge is constant lobbying attacks by large for-profit incumbents.

USTelecom urged OMB to ease permitting for broadband deployment on federal lands and loosen requirements for the BEAD program, in comments filed Monday in response to OMB’s April request for information on deregulation opportunities. Permitting processes “are the single most time-consuming aspect of a broadband build and create unnecessary delays,” USTelecom said. OMB should work with other federal agencies to create uniform categories, so such permits would be deemed granted if they satisfy consistent conditions, such as when permits are sought for previously disturbed land. “Requiring further review for previously disturbed or analyzed areas simply squanders the resources of government and businesses, while needlessly driving up costs and delaying broadband deployment."