28

FEDERALCOMMUNICATIONSCOMMISSION
Brendan Carr

MISSION STATEMENTThe FCC should promote freedom of speech, unleash economic opportunity,
ensure that every American has a fair shot at next-generation connectivity, andenable the private sector to create good-paying jobs through pro-growth reforms
that support a diversity of viewpoints, ensure secure and competitive communications networks, modernize outdated infrastructure rules, and represent goodstewardship of taxpayer dollars.
OVERVIEW AND BACKGROUND

The FCC is an independent regulatory agency that has jurisdiction over interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, andcable.1 Five Commissioners are appointed by the President and confirmed by the
Senate for fixed five-year terms.2 The FCC does not have any other presidentiallyappointed, Senate-confirmed officials. Ordinarily, the five-member FCC is divided
politically three to two with a majority of Commissioners from the same politicalparty as the President. The Commissioners’ terms are staggered so that every year
at the end of June, one Commissioner’s term expires.3 However, a Commissioner
can continue to serve until the end of the next session of Congress (or up to 1.5
years beyond the expiration of the term) if no replacement is confirmed after hisor her term ends.4
By law, only a bare majority of Commissioners can be from the same political party (no more than three when there are five members).5 By tradition, theChairperson resigns when a new President of a different political party is sworn— 845 —

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into office—though this is not required by law. By resigning, the exiting Commissioner enables the President to nominate someone from his own political party
to the FCC, and this typically shifts the political balance on the FCC toward thePresident’s political party. The President generally designates one of the existing
Commissioners of the President’s same political party as Chairperson—either onan acting or a permanent basis—on or shortly after Inauguration Day.
Under a tradition that dates back a few decades, when a relevant vacancy arises,
the President allows the leader of the opposite political party in the Senate to selectthe person who will serve in the minority Commissioner role. The President thenformally nominates the person identified by Senate leadership. This also is not
required by law.
As specified in the Communications Act of 1934, the FCC’s Chairperson serves
as the agency’s CEO and is empowered with significant authority that is not sharedwith other Commissioners.6 For instance, the Chairperson sets the FCC’s agenda,
decides what matters the agency will vote on and when, and has authority to organize and coordinate the FCC’s work.7 There is no separate Senate confirmation
process for the position of FCC Chairperson; the President designates one of theCommissioners to serve as Chairperson through a short one-sentence or two-sentence letter.8 There are no limits on the number of terms that a person can serveas an FCC Commissioner, though Commissioners need to be nominated and confirmed for each five-year term.
FCC Budget and Structure. In recent years, the FCC has employed between
1,300 and 1,500 people.9 The FCC’s fiscal year 2023 budget request is for approximately $390.2 million.10 While Congress appropriates funds for the FCC, theagency’s budget is offset by what are known as regulatory fees—fees the FCC collects from the licensees and other entities that it regulates and uses to offset its
budget request. The FCC also raises revenue for the government by auctioning
spectrum licenses. In fact, the FCC has generated more than $200 billion for the
U.S. Treasury through spectrum auctions.11
The FCC is organized into a series of bureaus and offices based on function.
These include an Office of General Counsel, Office of Inspector General, Office ofLegislative Affairs, Media Bureau, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, Wireline
Competition Bureau, Enforcement Bureau, and more.12
High-Profile FCC Matters. The FCC addresses a number of important matters. For instance, Section 230 is codified in the Communications Act,13 and the
FCC has authority to interpret that law and thus provide courts with guidance
about the proper application of the statutory language.14 The FCC has addressed“net neutrality” rules and the regulatory framework that should apply to broadband
offerings. Any merger that involves a wireless company, broadcaster, or similar
entity that holds an FCC license must obtain FCC approval (assuming that themerger will involve the transfer of the FCC license).

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Federal Communications Commission

The FCC has facilitated the transition from 3G to 4G and now 5G offerings in
two ways. First, it has freed spectrum—the airwaves needed to deliver wireless services. Second, it has preempted state and local siting and permitting laws that could
otherwise slow down the buildout of next-generation infrastructure. One of the
FCC’s great success stories from 2017 to 2020 was securing U.S. leadership in 5G.
The FCC also administers an approximately roughly $9 billion-a-year program
called the Universal Service Fund (USF), which has been funded by a line-item
charge that traditional telephone companies add to consumers’ monthly bills.
Expenditures from this fund subsidize rural broadband networks and low-income
programs as well as connections for schools, libraries, and rural health care facilities. Through various COVID-era laws, Congress has also provided the FCC witha one-time $24 billion appropriation for various low-income initiatives.
POLICY PRIORITIESThe FCC needs to change course and bring new urgency to achieving
four main goals:
Reining in Big Tech,lPromoting national security,lUnleashing economic prosperity, andlEnsuring FCC accountability and good governance.15

﻿lReining in Big Tech. The FCC has an important role to play in addressing
the threats to individual liberty posed by corporations that are abusing dominantpositions in the market. Nowhere is that clearer than when it comes to Big Techand its attempts to drive diverse political viewpoints from the digital town square.
Today, a handful of corporations can shape everything from the information
we consume to the places we shop. These corporate behemoths are not merely
exercising market power; they are abusing dominant positions. They are not simply
prevailing in the free market; they are taking advantage of a landscape that has
been skewed—in many cases by the government—to favor their business models
over those of their competitors. It is hard to imagine another industry in which agreater gap exists between power and accountability. That is why a new Administration should support FCC action on several fronts. Specifically, the FCC should:lEliminate immunities that courts added to Section 230. The FCC
should issue an order that interprets Section 230 in a way that eliminates
the expansive, non-textual immunities that courts have read into the statute.

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As one of the FCC’s previous General Counsels noted, the FCC has authority
to take this action because Section 230 is codified in the Communications
Act.16 The FCC’s Section 230 reforms should track the positions outlined
in a July 2020 Petition for Rulemaking filed at the FCC near the end of
the Trump Administration.17 Any new presidential Administration should
consider filing a similar or new petition.
As Justice Clarence Thomas has made clear, courts have construed Section
230 broadly to confer on some of the world’s largest companies a sweeping
immunity that is found nowhere in the text of the statute.18 They have done
so in a way that nullifies the limits Congress placed on the types of actions
that Internet companies can take while continuing to benefit from Section230. One way to start correcting this error is for the FCC to remind courts
how the various portions of Section 230 operate.
At the outset, the FCC can clarify that Section 230(c)(1) does not apply
broadly to every decision that a platform makes. Rather, its protections
apply only when a platform does not remove information provided bysomeone else. In contrast, the FCC should clarify that the more limited
Section 230(c)(2) protections apply to any covered platform’s decision
to restrict access to material provided by someone else. Combined, theseactions will appropriately limit the number of cases in which a platform
can censor with the benefit of Section 230’s protections. Such clarifications
might also include drawing out the traditional legal distinction between
distributor and publisher liability; Section 230 did not do away with theformer, nor does it collapse into the latter.
l

Impose transparency rules on Big Tech. Today, Big Tech offers a blackbox. After Google manipulates search results, a small business can see its
web traffic drop precipitously overnight for no apparent reason, potentially
flipping its outlook from black to red. On Facebook, social media posts
are left up or taken down, accounts suspended or permanently banned,
without any apparent consistency. Out of the blue, YouTube can demonetize
individuals who have risked their capital and invested their labor to build
online businesses.
At present, the FCC requires broadband providers to comply with atransparency rule that can provide a good baseline for Big Tech. Under the
FCC’s rule, broadband providers must provide detailed disclosures about
practices that would shape Internet traffic—from blocking to prioritizing or
discriminating against content. The FCC could take a similar approach to— 848 —

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Big Tech, and it should look to Section 230 and the Consolidated Reporting
Act as potential sources of authority.19 In acting, the FCC could require theseplatforms to provide greater specificity regarding their terms of service, and it
could hold them accountable by prohibiting actions that are inconsistent withthose plain and particular terms. Within this framework, Big Tech should be
required to offer a transparent appeals process that allows for the challenging
of pretextual takedowns or other actions that violate clear rules of the road.
lSupport legislation that scraps Section 230’s current approach. The
FCC should work with Congress on more fundamental Section 230 reforms
that go beyond interpreting its current terms. Congress should do so by
ensuring that Internet companies no longer have carte blanche to censor
protected speech while maintaining their Section 230 protections. As
part of those reforms, the FCC should work with Congress to ensure that
antidiscrimination provisions are applied to Big Tech—including “back-end”
companies that provide hosting services and DDoS protection. Reforms
that prohibit discrimination against core political viewpoints are one way to
do this and would track the approach taken in a social media law passed in
Texas, which was upheld on appeal in late 2022 by the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit.20
In all of this, Congress can make certain points clear. It could focus
legislation on dominant, general-use platforms rather than specialized
ones. This could include excluding comment sections in online publications,specialized message boards, or communities within larger platforms that
self-moderate. Similarly, Congress could legislate in a way that does not
require any platform to host illegal content; child pornography; terrorist
speech; and indecent, profane, or similar categories of speech that Congresshas previously carved out.

lSupport efforts to empower consumers. The FCC and Congress should
work together to formulate rules that empower consumers. Section 230
itself codifies “user control” as an express policy goal and encourages
Internet platforms to provide tools that will “empower” users to engage
in their own content moderation. As Congress takes up reforms, it should
therefore be mindful of how we can return to Internet users the power tocontrol their online experiences. One idea is to empower consumers tochoose their own content filters and fact checkers, if any. The FCC should
also work with Congress to ensure stronger protections against young
children accessing social media sites despite age restrictions that generally
prohibit their use of these sites.

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It should be noted at this point that the views expressed here are not shared
uniformly by all conservatives. There are some, including contributors tothis chapter, who do not think that the FCC or Congress should act in a waythat regulates the content-moderation decisions of private platforms. Oneof the main arguments that this group offers is that doing so would intrude—
unlawfully in their view—on the First Amendment rights of corporations to
exclude content from their private platforms.
lRequire that Big Tech begin to contribute a fair share. Big Tech
has avoided accountability in several additional ways as well. One ofthem concerns the FCC’s roughly $9 billion Universal Service Fund.
This initiative provides the support necessary to subsidize the agency’s
affordable Internet and rural connectivity programs. The FCC obtains thisfunding through a line-item charge that carriers add to consumers’ monthly
bills for traditional telecommunications service.
While Big Tech derives tremendous value from the federal government’s
universal service investments—using those federally supported networks
to deliver their products and realize significant profits—these large
corporations have avoided paying a fair share into the program. On top of
that, the FCC’s current funding mechanism has been on an unsustainable
path.21 By requiring traditional telephone customers to contribute to afund that is being used increasingly to support broadband networks, the
FCC’s current approach is the regulatory equivalent of taxing horseshoes
to pay for highways. To put the FCC’s universal service program on a stablefooting, Congress should require Big Tech companies to start contributing
an appropriate amount.
Conservatives are not unanimous in agreeing that the FCC should expand
the USF contribution base. Instead, some argue that Congress should revisit
the program’s entire funding structure and determine whether to continue
subsidizing the provision of service. Future funding decisions, the argument
goes, should be made by Congress through the normal appropriation process
through which the USF program can compete for funding with other national
initiatives. These decisions should be made with an eye to right-sizing
the federal government’s existing broadband initiatives in light of bothtechnological advances and the recent influx of billions of dollars in new
appropriations that can be used to support efforts to end the digital divide.

Protecting America’s National Security. During the Trump Administration, the FCC ushered in a new and appropriately strong approach to the national— 850 —

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security threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). During that time,
the FCC eliminated federal subsidies for telecommunications equipment from
Huawei and ZTE, thereby greatly reducing the chances of that equipment finding a
way into our nation’s communications networks. The FCC also stood up a program
to rip and replace insecure network gear to ensure that it did not remain a threat
lurking inside our systems. The FCC revoked or denied the licenses of carriers like
China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom, which presented unacceptablenational security risks. There are, however, additional strong actions that the FCC
can and should take to address the CCP’s malign campaign. Specifically:lllAddress TikTok’s threat to U.S. national security. As law enforcement
officials have made clear, TikTok poses a serious and unacceptable risk to
America’s national security.22 It also provides Beijing with an opportunity to
run a foreign influence campaign by determining the news and informationthat the app feeds to millions of Americans. As of this writing, the Biden
Administration’s Treasury Department has not announced a final decision
concerning its long-pending review of TikTok. If that inaction persists, or if
the Administration allows TikTok to continue to operate in the U.S., a new
Administration should ban the application on national security grounds.
Expand the FCC’s Covered List. The FCC maintains a list ofcommunications equipment and services that pose an unacceptable risk to
the national security of the United States. It is known as the Covered List.23
Huawei is one of the companies on the Covered List, and its inclusion meansthat the FCC will no longer review or approve new applications from Huawei.
Without FCC approval, new Huawei gear cannot be lawfully sold or used in
the U.S. However, the FCC must do a better job of ensuring that its Covered
List stays up to date and accounts for changes in corporate names and forms.
Therefore, a new Administration should create a more regular and timely
process for reviewing entities with ties to the CCP’s surveillance state.
End the unregulated end run. As noted above, China Telecom and similar
entities have been banned from operating in the U.S. in a manner that would
require an FCC license or authorization because of the national security
risks that those entities pose. However, many of these same entities arestill operating in the U.S. and offering services very similar to the ones thatthey are prohibited from providing. China Telecom, for instance, continues
to provide services to data centers by offering the services on a private or“unregulated” basis. A new Administration should work with the FCC toclose this loophole. One way to do so would be for the FCC to prohibit any
regulated carrier from interconnecting with an insecure provider.

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l

l

l

l

Publish a foreign adversary transparency list. As part of the FCC’s
ongoing work to secure our networks from entities that would do thebidding of our foreign adversaries, the FCC should do more to shine thelight of transparency on the scope of the problem. To this end, the FCC
should compile and publish a list of all entities that hold FCC authorizations,licenses, or other grants of authority with more than 10 percent ownershipby foreign adversarial governments, including the governments of China,
Russia, Iran, Syria, or North Korea. A bipartisan bill that would require
the FCC to publish this type of list has been introduced in the House ofRepresentatives by Representatives Elise Stefanik (R–NY), Ro Khanna (D–CA), and Mike Gallagher (R–WI).24
Fully fund the federal “rip and replace” program. In 2019, Congress
established a $1.9 billion Secure and Trusted Communications Networks
Reimbursement Program (known colloquially as the “rip and replace”
program) to reimburse communications providers for the reasonable
expenses they would incur to remove, replace, and dispose of insecure
Huawei and ZTE gear. However, $1.9 billion is about $3 billion short of thetotal amount of funding needed to complete the rip and replace process. A
new Administration should ensure that the program is fully funded andshould look first at repurposing and applying unused COVID-era emergency
funds for this purpose.
Launch a Clean Standards Initiative. During the Trump Administration,
the U.S. government launched a worldwide Clean Networks program.25
As a result of this initiative, many of the U.S. government’s allies started
the process of ending their relationships with Huawei. It is time for an
Administration to build and expand on this groundbreaking work bytaking a similar approach to the standard-setting process. Right now,
the CCP is seeking to extend its influence by exerting control over thedevelopment of standards in a variety of areas, including technology andtelecommunications. It is vital that the United States meet this threat with acomprehensive clean standards initiative.
Stop aiding the CCP’s authoritarian approach to artificial
intelligence. The CCP has set itself a goal of becoming the global leader in
artificial intelligence (AI) by 2030. Beijing is bent on using this technology
to exert authoritarian control domestically and export its authoritarian
governance model overseas. U.S. businesses are aiding Beijing in this effort—
often unwittingly—by feeding, training, and improving the AI datasetsof companies that are beholden to the CCP. One way that U.S. companies— 852 —

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are doing this is by giving Beijing access to their high-powered cloudcomputing services. Therefore, it is time for an Administration to put inplace a comprehensive plan that aims to stop U.S. entities from directly or
indirectly contributing to China’s malign AI goals.
Unleashing Economic Prosperity. The FCC needs to advance a pro-growth
agenda that gives every American a fair shot at next-generation connectivity.
This is vital for economic opportunity and prosperous communities. The current
Administration has appropriated a lot of money for broadband infrastructure projects, but it has failed to pair that spending with reforms that free more airwaves
for wireless connectivity or streamline the permitting processes for broadband
builds. That failure is holding back America’s hardworking telecommunications
crews and leaving Americans stuck waiting on the wrong side of the digital divide.
It is time for a return to the successful spectrum and infrastructure policies thatprevailed during the Trump Administration—policies that enabled the U.S. to leadthe world in 5G.
ll

Refill America’s spectrum pipeline. From 2017 through 2020, the FCC
took unprecedented steps to free the airwaves needed to power 5G andother next-generation wireless services. This work not only helped to secure
America’s wireless leadership and bolster competition, but also enabled theprivate sector to create jobs and grow the economy. Recently, the FCC has
failed to match the pace and cadence of those spectrum actions. Therefore,
the FCC and a new Administration should work together to develop anational spectrum strategy that both identifies the specific airwaves that
the FCC can free for commercial wireless services and sets an aggressive
timeline for agency action.
Facilitate coordination on spectrum issues. Wireless services now
play a central role in advancing America’s economic and national security
interests. Over the past few years, this dynamic has led to an increasing
number of headline-level disputes between the commercial wireless sector
and federal agencies. These disputes are often framed in zero-sum terms
as commercial wireless and federal agency stakeholders argue over theappropriate types and amount of airwaves that the government shouldallocate for various purposes. On the one hand, America’s global economic
leadership depends on its ability to free spectrum that will power the U.S.
commercial wireless industry. On the other hand, we must ensure that
America’s national security and other federal agencies have access to thespectrum resources that they need to carry out their vital missions.

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Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

It is clear that the current process is not delivering optimal outcomes. In
December 2021 and January 2022, for instance, the lack of interagency
coordination and communication about mid-band 5G spectrum allocation
between the FCC and the Federal Aviation Authority led to significant
challenges for the U.S. aviation industry. Over the past two years, the FCC
has failed to move spectrum into the commercial marketplace at the samepace and cadence that it did in the recent past. Creating better mechanisms
to improve communication and cooperation between different federal
agencies could enable a more effective and coordinated U.S. government
telecommunications strategy. The White House should work with Congress
to establish a spectrum coordination process that will work for bothcommercial and federal users.
l

Modernize infrastructure rules. By 2016, the construction of new cellsites—the building blocks for 5G—had essentially flatlined in America.
Because of outdated permitting rules, it cost too much and took too long tobuild wireless infrastructure, so the FCC went to work. The agency updated
the environmental and historic preservation rules that needlessly drove up
the cost and slowed down the timeline for adding small cells. The FCC put inplace guardrails to address outlier fees and delays imposed at the state andlocal levels on those same small-cell projects. It modernized the permitting
process in several additional ways as well.
Those FCC reforms delivered results. They allowed America’s private
sector to bring thousands of families across the digital divide and to keep
Americans connected during the pandemic. In fact, infrastructure builds
accelerated at a record pace after those reforms. In 2019, for instance, U.S.
providers built over 46,000 new cell sites—a sixty-fivefold increase over2016 levels.
The FCC has not engaged in any similar infrastructure reforms in recent
years, and there is much more that needs to be done. For instance, the FCC’s
prior reforms focused on streamlining the rules for small wireless facilities.
The FCC should now explore similar action for the deployment of otherwired infrastructure by imposing limits on the fees that local and state
governments can charge for reviewing those wireline applications and time
restrictions on the government’s decision-making process.
The next Administration should also work to address the delays that
continue to persist when it comes to building Internet infrastructure on
federal lands. This is an area where the FCC itself has very little jurisdiction,— 854 —

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so a new Administration should redouble efforts to require timely reviews
and final actions by agencies with jurisdiction over federal lands, including
the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service.
lAdvance America’s space leadership. One of the most significant
technological developments of the past few years has been the emergenceof a new generation of low-earth orbit satellites like StarLink and Kuiper.
This technology can beam a reliable, high-speed Internet signal to nearly
any part of the globe at a fraction of the cost of other technologies. Thishas the potential to significantly accelerate efforts to end the digital divideand disrupt the federal regulatory and subsidy regime that applies tocommunications networks. The FCC should expedite its work to support
this new technology by acting more quickly in its review and approval of
applications to launch new satellites. Otherwise, the U.S. risks ceding spaceleadership to entities based in countries with more friendly regulatoryenvironments.

Holding Government Accountable. Federal technology and telecommunications programs have been plagued by a troubling lack of accountability and good
governance. They would benefit from stronger oversight and a fresh look at eliminating outdated regulations that are doing more harm than good.
l

End wasteful broadband spending policies. Many of the broadband
spending policies being pursued by the current Administration arepoised to waste taxpayer money while leaving rural communities andunconnected Americans behind. At the same time, the dramatic recent
increases in funding through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and theInfrastructure Investment and Jobs Act mean that the federal government
has more than enough resources to meet its broadband connectivity
goals. Congress should therefore hold the agencies accountable so that
taxpayer money is used effectively to promote broadband connectivity
across the nation.
To that end, the next Administration should instruct the various
departments and agencies that are administering broadband infrastructure
funds to direct those resources to communities without adequate
Internet infrastructure instead of to places that already enjoy broadband
connectivity. Take, for example, the final rules that the Treasury
Department adopted in 2022 that govern the expenditure of $350 billion
in ARPA funds. Rather than directing those dollars to the rural andother communities that have no Internet infrastructure, the current— 855 —

Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise

Administration gave the green light for recipients to spend those funds tooverbuild existing high-speed networks in communities that already havemultiple broadband providers. A new Administration should eliminate
government-funded overbuilding of existing networks.
lAdopt a national coordinating strategy. Hundreds of billions ofinfrastructure dollars have been appropriated by Congress or budgeted byagencies over the past couple of years that can be used to end the digital
divide. Yet, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, “U.S.
broadband efforts are not guided by a national strategy”; instead, “[f ]ederal
broadband efforts are fragmented and overlapping, with more than 100
programs administered by 15 agencies,” risking overbuilding as wellas wasteful duplication.26 Many of these programs remain plagued byinefficiency, further contributing to waste of limited taxpayer dollars.
Moreover, the federal government is failing to put appropriate guardrails
in place to govern the expenditure of billions in broadband funds. Thisis the regulatory equivalent of turning the spigot on full blast and thenwalking away from the hose. There is a worrisome lack of adequate
tracking, measurement, and accountability standards governing all of thisbroadband spending. As a result, we are likely to see headline levels of waste,fraud, and abuse.
A new Administration needs to bring fresh oversight to this spending andput a national strategy in place to ensure that the federal government adopts
a coordinated approach to its various broadband initiatives. Similarly, thenext Administration should ask the FCC to launch a review of its existingbroadband programs, including the different components of the USF, withthe goal of avoiding duplication, improving efficiency of existing programs,
and saving taxpayer money.

l

Correct the FCC’s regulatory trajectory and encourage competition
to improve connectivity. The FCC is a New Deal–era agency. Its historyof regulation tends to reflect the view that the federal government should
impose heavy-handed regulation rather than relying on competition
and market forces to produce optimal outcomes. President Franklin D.
Roosevelt recommended that Congress create the FCC in February 1934
for the purposes of establishing “a single Government agency charged
with broad authority” over the field of communications.27 Congress
subsequently established the FCC through the Communications Act of 1934.
Congress has passed a number of additional statutes—some broad, some— 856 —

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narrow—that pertain to the FCC’s authority, including most significantly
the Telecommunications Act of 1996,28 which opened up markets for greater
competition and largely deregulated industry segments.
Technological change in the connectivity sector is occurring rapidly. We
are now seeing an unprecedented level of convergence, innovation, andcompetition in the market for connectivity. On the one hand, traditional
cable providers like Charter are now offering mobile wireless services to
consumers in direct competition with traditional wireless companies like
Verizon. On the other hand, a new generation of low-earth orbit satellite
services like StarLink and Amazon’s Project Kuiper stand to offer highspeed home broadband in competition with legacy providers. Furthermore,
broadcasters are offering high-speed downloads directly to consumers overspectrum that previously provided only TV service.
These rapidly evolving market conditions counsel in favor of eliminating
many of the heavy-handed FCC regulations that were adopted in an era
when every technology operated in a silo. These include many of the FCC’smedia ownership rules, which can have the effect of restricting investment
and competition because those regulations assume a far more limited set ofcompetitors for advertising dollars than exist today, as well as its universal
service requirements.
Ultimately, FCC reliance on competition and innovation is vital if theagency is to deliver optimal outcomes for the American public. The
FCC should engage in a serious top-to-bottom review of its regulations
and take steps to rescind any that are overly cumbersome or outdated.
The Commission should focus its efforts on creating a market-friendly
regulatory environment that fosters innovation and competition from awide range of actors, including cable-based, broadband-based, and satellitebased Internet providers.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The preparation of this chapter was a collective enterprise of individuals involved in the2025 Presidential Transition Project. All contributors to this chapter are listed at the front of this volume. While thischapter identifies certain issues on which the contributors did not all agree, the author alone assumes responsibility
for the content of this chapter, and no views expressed herein should be attributed to any other individual.

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ENDNOTES

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

9.

10.
11.

12.

13.
14.

15.

16.
17.

18.
19.

20.

47 U.S.C. § 151, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/151 (accessed January 23, 2023).
47 U.S.C. § 154, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/154 (accessed January 23, 2023).
Ibid.
47 U.S.C. § 154(c).
47 U.S.C. § 154(b)(5).
47 U.S.C. § 155(a), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/155 (accessed January 23, 2023).
Ibid.
Ibid. There are no limits on the President’s authority to designate a different Chairperson from among theexisting Commissioners. Further, though it is an open question, it is generally believed that the judiciary
would impose limits on the power of the President to remove a Commissioner during his or her five-year term.
The question is not settled because Congress did not include an express “for cause” or similar protection
against removal in the Communications Act itself. Scholars assume this is because Congress passed theCommunications Act in the years between the Supreme Court’s decision in Myers v. United States, 272 U.S.
52 (1926) and Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602 (1935), when it was not entirely clear that
Congress could impose a limit on the President’s removal power. However, the Communications Act wassignificantly amended in 1996, and Congress did not add “just cause” or other protections from removal
at that time. Considering the high-profile contemporary debates about the appointment and removal ofindependent counsels under the Independent Counsel Act, one could reasonably assume that Congress wasaware of removal powers and protections for presidentially appointed and Senate-confirmed officials.
Chart, “FTEs—Historical and Estimated, Fiscal Years 1986–2023,” in U.S. Federal Communications Commission,
2023 Budget Estimates to Congress, March 2022, p. 17, https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-381693A1.
pdf (accessed January 23, 2023).
U.S. Federal Communications Commission, 2023 Budget Estimates to Congress, p. 7.
Roslyn Layton, “Spectrum Auctions Have Raised $230 Billion; The FCC’s Authority to Conduct Them
Will Lapse Soon If Congress Doesn’t Act,” Forbes, April 29, 2022, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
roslynlayton/2022/04/29/spectrum-auctions-have-raised-230-billion-the-fccs-authority-to-conduct-themwill-lapse-soon-if-congress-doesnt-act/?sh=4d32066908eb (accessed January 23, 2023).
For a full listing of the FCC’s Bureaus and Offices, along with their functions and an organization chart, see
U.S. Federal Communications Commission, “Organizational Charts of the FCC,” https://www.fcc.gov/about-fcc/
organizational-charts-fcc (accessed January 23, 2023).
47 U.S.C. § 230, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230 (accessed January 23, 2023).
Thomas M. Johnson Jr., “The FCC’s Authority to Interpret Section 230 of the Communications Act,” October
21, 2020, https://www.fcc.gov/news-events/blog/2020/10/21/fccs-authority-interpret-section-230communications-act (accessed January 23, 2023).
This chapter does not purport to set forth a comprehensive agenda for the FCC. Rather, it focuses on aselected handful of issue areas that may quickly rise to the attention of a new Administration. Similarly, notevery contributor to this chapter agrees with every policy idea included here; this document attempts toreflect a range of views and perspectives.
Johnson, “The FCC’s Authority to Interpret Section 230 of the Communications Act.”
U.S. Department of Commerce, National Telecommunications and Information Administration, “NTIA Petition
for Rulemaking to Clarify Provisions of Section 230 of the Communications Act,” July 27, 2020, https://ntia.gov/fcc-filing/ntia-petition-rulemaking-clarify-provisions-section-230-communications-act (accessed
January 23, 2023).
Malwarebytes, Inc. v. Enigma Software, 592 U.S. ___ (2020) (Thomas, J., statement respecting the denial ofcertiorari), https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-1284_869d.pdf (accessed January 23, 2023).
See 47 U.S.C. § 230; see also Ray Baum’s Act of 2018, Division P, Title IV, § 401 (codifying the Consolidated
Reporting Act), in H.R. 1625, Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018, Public Law No. 115-141, 115th
Congress, March 23, 2018, https://www.congress.gov/115/plaws/publ141/PLAW-115publ141.pdf (accessed
January 23, 2023).
NetChoice, L.L.C. v. Paxton, 49 F.4th 439 (5th Cir. 2022), https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/
gdpzqyobyvw/alisonn%201.pdf (accessed January 23, 2023).

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21. Hal J. Singer and Ted Tatos, Subsidizing Universal Broadband Through a Digital Advertising Services Fee: An
Alignment of Incentives, Econ One, September 2021, p. 1 (“[T]he current USF mechanism is unsustainable andwill fail to meet the needs of its target consumer base within the next five years.”), https://www.econone.com/
wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Digital-Divide-HSinger-TTatos-2.pdf (accessed January 23, 2023).
22. FBI Director Christopher Wray, testimony in video of hearing, Worldwide Threats to the Homeland, Committeeon Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives, November 15, 2022, at 02:27, https://democratshomeland.house.gov/activities/hearings/11/04/2022/worldwide-threats-to-the-homeland (accessed January
23, 2023); John D. McKinnon, Arunav Viswanatha, and Stu Woo, “TikTok National-Security Deal Faces More
Delays as Worry Grows Over Risks,” The Wall Street Journal, updated December 6, 2022, https://www.wsj.
com/articles/tiktok-national-security-deal-faces-more-delays-as-worry-grows-over-risks-11670342800(accessed January 23, 2023).
23. U.S. Federal Communications Commission, “List of Equipment and Services Covered by Section 2 of the
Secure Networks Act,” updated September 20, 2022, https://www.fcc.gov/supplychain/coveredlist (accessed
January 23, 2023).
24. H.R. 820, Foreign Adversary Communications Transparency Act, 118th Congress, introduced February 2, 2023,
https://www.congress.gov/118/bills/hr820/BILLS-118hr820ih.pdf (accessed March 6, 2023).
25. U.S. Department of State, “The Clean Network,” https://2017-2021.state.gov/the-clean-network/index.html(accessed January 23, 2023).
26. U.S. Government Accountability Office, Broadband: National Strategy Needed to Guide Federal Efforts to
Reduce Digital Divide, GAO-22-104611, May 2022, https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-22-104611.pdf (accessed
January 23, 2023).
27. Document No. 144, “Federal Communications Commission: Message from the President of the UnitedStates Recommending that Congress Create a New Agency to be Known as the Federal Communications
Commission,” U.S. Senate, 73rd Cong., 2nd Sess., February 26, 1934, https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/
DOC-298207A1.pdf (accessed January 23, 2023).
28. 47 U.S.C, Chapter 5, §§ 151 et seq., (accessed March 6, 2023).

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