Better submarine cable network security starts with walling off untrusted vendors and adversary nations, trade groups and national security interests told the FCC in docket 24-523 this week. Many criticized the NPRM -- which proposes rules changes aimed at addressing national security and law enforcement threats to cables -- as creating more complexity and burdensome regulations and flying in the face of the FCC's "Delete, Delete, Delete" deregulatory agenda. Commissioners adopted the subsea cable NPRM unanimously in November (see 2411210006). The subsea cable industry has said it hoped the Trump administration would alleviate the particularly onerous regulatory burdens it faces (see 2502260042).

Approved by Congress last year (see 2412180027), the Spectrum and Secure Technology and Innovation Act makes clear that the FCC must auction all AWS-3 licenses remaining in its inventory, CTIA said in reply comments about an auction procedures NPRM. Whether the FCC should create a tribal licensing window (TLW), which could allow tribes to obtain spectrum for some of the least-connected communities in the U.S., remains a contentious issue (see 2504010055). Comments were posted Tuesday in docket 25-70.

Three senators introduced a bill April 9 that would authorize the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. to review greenfield and brownfield investments in the U.S. by China and other “foreign countries of concern.”

Two recent Circuit Court of Appeals cases dealing with the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) of 1988, combined with the 2nd Circuit’s ruling in NBA v. Salazar from October, may have set the stage for a future ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court over whether old laws can be expanded and constitutionally interpreted to apply to new technologies, privacy lawyers say. Others say the circuit split may be resolve by Congress revisiting the statute.

The decline of U.S. commercial shipbuilding -- and the fact that it's not cost-competitive with Japanese and South Korean shipbuilding -- must be rectified, the administration said, but the precise details of how that can be accomplished are yet to be determined.

Rebar exporter Kaptan Demir argued that the U.S. failed to defend the Commerce Department's position in the 2021 countervailing duty review on steel concrete rebar from Turkey that exemptions from Turkey's Banking and Insurance Transactions Tax (BITT) are de jure specific. Filing a reply brief at the Court of International Trade on March 30, Kaptan said the government's position that Kaptan failed to provide evidence that every Turkish company is eligible for the exemption is "factually incorrect" (Kaptan Demir Celik Endustrisi ve Ticaret v. U.S., CIT #24-00096).

A former Trump trade negotiator, Kelly Ann Shaw, described as "one of the key architects of the Administration’s trade, investment, energy and national security policies" in Trump's first term by her current law firm, said the reciprocal tariffs announced April 2, based on goods trade deficits, are not the same tariffs that will be in place weeks, months or years from now.

Melamine exporters led by Qatar Melamine Company brought suit against the Commerce Department March 28 contesting the department’s assignment of adverse facts available to its government-supplied water and electricity purchases (Qatar Melamine Company v. United States, CIT # 25-00053).

A White House executive order issued Thursday ends federal employee union bargaining rights at a host of federal agencies, including the FCC, citing national security concerns. Laws that allow for collective bargaining enable “hostile Federal unions to obstruct agency management. This is dangerous in agencies with national security responsibilities,” said a White House fact sheet on the order.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, revealed during a Thursday hearing that multiple commercial aircraft landing at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) March 1 received false traffic alert collision avoidance system (TCAS) alerts because the Secret Service and U.S. Navy were “improperly testing counter drone technology” in the area on the L-band, “the same spectrum band as TCAS.” The disclosure also factored into Senate Commerce's confirmation hearing for NTIA nominee Arielle Roth (see 2503270065), which examined her spectrum policy views.