Former FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington is criticizing the agency's EchoStar probes as having the potential to be "seriously market-disruptive, and even to impair American national security." He wrote this week that the threat EchoStar faces of numerous spectrum license revocations "places every holder of a spectrum license in a riskier position and will raise consumer prices by forcing every licensee, not just EchoStar, to charge higher risk premiums." The commission is probing whether EchoStar is using the 2 GHz band for mobile satellite service consistent with its authorizations, while it also seeks comment on VTel Wireless' recon petition on an extension of EchoStar's 5G network buildout deadlines (see 2505130003). Given that EchoStar has claimed to meet its 5G network buildout commitments, "moving to threaten its licenses seems extremely market-disruptive out of proportion to any claimed offense," Simington said.

The FCC will hold a workshop at its headquarters July 7 at 9:30 a.m. aimed at promoting resiliency and recovery efforts ahead of hurricane season. The roundtable will feature three panels, the FCC said Tuesday: “Challenges to Response and Recovery of Power and Communications Outages in the Aftermath of a Hurricane,” “Current Government, Intra-Industry, and Cross-Industry Partnerships” and “The Advance Preparation Frameworks for Power and Communications Outages.” Speakers weren’t announced.

The National Treasury Employees Union wants the U.S. District Court for the D.C. Circuit to rule that the White House’s order ending collective bargaining at the FCC and numerous other federal agencies is illegal, said a motion for summary judgment filed Monday. The order said more than 30 federal agencies -- including the FCC, Department of Veterans Affairs and IRS -- fall under a national security exemption from congressional collective bargaining rules. That exemption had previously applied only to a few entities, such as the CIA. The district court issued an injunction blocking the order in April, which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit stayed last month.

Two Texas associations this week petitioned the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals asking it to overturn a January declaratory ruling by the FCC in response to the Salt Typhoon cyberattacks. CTIA, NCTA and USTelecom previously asked the FCC to reconsider the ruling (see 2502190081), which now-Chairman Brendan Carr had opposed (see 2501160041). Commissioners approved it 3-2 in the final days of the Biden administration.

The FCC Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau approved a waiver Monday for the Edison Electric Institute, which asked for clarity that utilities have prior express consent under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act to send demand response texts and calls to their customers (see 2503100047). “A tool utilities have to manage grid burden is ‘demand response’ communications that inform customers of actions that they can take to help avoid potential service disruptions and price increases during high demand periods, often saving money on their bills in the process,” the bureau said. “We confirm that such calls and texts are ‘closely related’ to the utility service. Our action will promote reliable utility service to customers as well as cost savings to consumers.”

“No new or novel issues should be considered” by the FCC until it has a quorum, said Commissioner Anna Gomez at a webinar hosted Monday by the Free Press Foundation. The agency doesn’t have a quorum because both Commissioner Nathan Simington and Geoffrey Starks resigned Friday (see 2506060035). The event was the latest in Gomez’s “First Amendment Tour” of speaking engagements on the FCC's and White House’s policies against media organizations. “New and novel” includes controversial matters like the Skydance/Paramount deal, Gomez said, adding that the agency shouldn’t use delegated authority to act on such matters without at least three commissioners. “Right now, we don't have a quorum, so we cannot have agency action on these types of matters,” she said. “Anything less would leave agency action subject to shaky legal ground.”

The FCC Public Safety Bureau will conduct a voluntary exercise of the disaster information reporting system (DIRS) for all communications providers June 16-18, according to a public notice Thursday. The test will begin June 16 with a mock activation letter to all registered DIRS participants from the Public Safety Bureau, it said. The letter, which "will clearly state that this is only an exercise,” will include a list of preselected counties that form the affected area for the mock DIRS activation, and providers will be asked to report data on any communication assets they have in those counties. "Since this is an exercise, the FCC does not expect to receive actual outage data," the notice said. Providers that don’t have communications assets in the affected counties can still participate in the exercise by reporting mock data for the counties. The agency wants initial data by 10 a.m. ET June 17 and an updated report by the same time June 18. The bureau will send a deactivation letter by 3 p.m. ET June 18 to let participants know that the exercise is over.

Comments are due July 7, replies July 21, on the FCC’s proposals for FY 2025 regulatory fees, said an NPRM released Thursday. The agency on Wednesday unanimously approved the NPRM, which seeks comment on a proposal to reclassify 61 indirect full-time equivalents (FTEs) as direct FTEs, as well as on the $390,192,000 in proposed fees. The costs of indirect FTEs are borne by all FCC regulatory fee payors, while direct FTEs are paid only by the licensees serviced by the bureau or office to which they are assigned. The reallocation is based on the FCC determining “that certain FTE work in the Office of General Counsel, the Office of Economics and Analytics, and the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau is sufficiently linked to the oversight and regulation of regulatory fee payors in a core bureau.” Among the proposed changes to FTEs, the Wireless and Wireline bureaus' payors would see their direct FTEs increase by 23 each, while Media Bureau payors would see an increase of 13 FTEs. The regulatory fee NPRM doesn’t seek comment on proposed changes to the way fees for space and earth stations are calculated, because the proceeding for a recent Further NPRM on that subject (see 2502260017) is still open, Thursday’s NPRM said.

Police have arrested Jeffrey Gary, formerly an assistant division chief in the FCC Enforcement Bureau, for allegedly assaulting a woman. The attack occurred Friday evening near the Braddock Metro Station in Alexandria, Virginia, per a release this week from the Alexandria Police Department. Gary is being fired from the FCC, where he had served in the Enforcement Bureau's Telecommunications Consumers Division. Police said Gary has been linked to at least one other attack.

If the U.S. wants to win on AI, it must focus on telecom regulatory issues like permitting, Incompas CEO Chip Pickering told the House Communications Subcommittee on Wednesday. Pickering spoke during a hearing on how U.S. communications networks can support AI.