Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., introduced a bill Jan. 14 that would add the Interior Department to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. to review transactions involving land next to sites owned or managed by the agency and help identify potential national security threats to valuable natural resources.
The FCC closed out the comment cycle last week for an NPRM on proposed changes to wireless infrastructure rules, with support from industry and continuing opposition from RF safety advocates and many local government groups (see 2601150043). Reply comments were due Thursday (docket 25-276) in response to the item, which commissioners approved 3-0 in September (see 2511250075), and there were still no signs of agreement among the different sides.
Best Best localities lawyer Gerry Lederer pushed back Wednesday night against comments from Wireless Infrastructure Association CEO Patrick Halley that the American Broadband Deployment Act (HR-2289) represents a “partnership between industry and local government” aimed at easing connectivity permitting processes (see 2601090064). The House Commerce Committee in December advanced HR-2289, which combined language from 22 GOP-led connectivity permitting bills, by a closer-than-expected 26-24 party-line vote (see 2512030031). It would, in part, set a 150-day shot clock for states and localities to approve new deployments and a 90-day window for modifications to existing infrastructure.
The Treasury Department plans to release a request for information “soon” to get feedback on how the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. can ensure its new fast-track process for certain deals is as efficient as possible, CFIUS’s overseer told a congressional panel Jan. 14.
The FCC's proceeding on streamlining wireline deployment permitting shows the fundamental policy schism between the desire to speed up broadband buildouts nationwide and the desire to preserve local governance over rights-of-way and community planning, Ice Miller's Meagan Sunn wrote last week. While the Communications Act gives the FCC authority to preempt state or local rules that prohibit provision of telecommunications services, the agency's attempt to define certain permitting parties as inherently prohibitive could lead to legal challenges over the scope of that authority and its interaction with long-standing local land-use and rights-of-way management powers, said Sunn, the law firm's senior director of government affairs.
FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty laid out a framework for the agency to work on protecting communications networks from national security threats in a speech Monday to the Hudson Institute, saying that doing so has become a priority for her as a commissioner. Modernizing U.S. communications networks requires updating legacy infrastructure, hardening “critical nodes” such as submarine cable landing stations and 911 centers, improving space and satellite security, and using data and AI to spot threats, she said. She called on the FCC to better protect submarine cables by coordinating with other agencies and the intelligence community; focus on stronger cross-border spectrum coordination; and “help support more robust situational awareness tools for state, local, and tribal emergency authorities.” Local officials "increasingly depend on timely, accurate, and actionable information about network outages, and modernizing those tools would strengthen response and recovery during crises."
The Commerce Department reasonably used the Thailand Board of Investment's Cost of Doing Business in Thailand 2023 report as a benchmark to determine the benefit for Vietnam's "Exemption or Reduction of Rents for Encouraged Industries" subsidy, the Court of International Trade held on Jan. 8.
EchoStar and SpaceX arguments that the FCC has no role in contract disputes over EchoStar's now-aborted terrestrial wireless buildout plans ignore the fact that the companies are citing agency action as the reason for those plans' demise, said critics of the EchoStar/SpaceX spectrum deal in reply comments last week. Wireless infrastructure interests have urged the commission not to approve SpaceX's purchase of EchoStar terrestrial spectrum licenses until the latter company commits to fulfilling contracts related to its wireless buildout (see 2512160006).
The following are short summaries of recent CBP NY rulings issued by the agency's National Commodity Specialist Division in New York:
The Court of International Trade on Jan. 8 sustained the Commerce Department's final determination in the countervailing duty investigation of frozen warmwater shrimp from Vietnam. Judge Leo Gordon held that the court "cannot agree" with plaintiff Soc Trang Seafood that Commerce acted unreasonably when it found that the Thailand Board of Investment's "Cost of doing Business in Thailand 2023" report constituted the "best available information on the record for establishing a benchmark to value land rented from government authorities."