Brendan Carr

The FCC’s Democratic majority wants cable and satellite TV consumers to receive rebates when TV stations go dark on their TVs. The plan, unveiled Wednesday by FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel, triggered a strong response from the agency’s two Republicans, Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington.

The Senate has confirmed the re-nominations of Democrat Geoffrey Starks and Republican Brendan Carr for new terms on the FCC, insuring there won’t be any more FCC nomination drama, at least in the near term following last week’s swearing in of Democrat Anna Gomez. The pair were confirmed by voice vote late Saturday (Sept. 30).

The Senate Commerce Committee has scheduled a vote next week on the nomination of Anna Gomez (left) for the open seat on the FCC, as well as the renominations of Democrat Geoffrey Starks (center) and Republican Brendan Carr (right) for their respective seats. The nomination markup will be July 12 at 10 a.m. If all goes well, the committee will favorably report the nominations to the full Senate for a vote, something that never happened for Gomez’s predecessor, Gigi Sohn, whose nomination was withdrawn after it was killed by Republicans, industry players and at least one Democrat who failed to support her.

The GOP commissioner says the foreign-investment panel needs to wrap up its review, and without cutting a deal.

The Council on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) should take action to ban TikTok, according to Brendan Carr, one of five FCC commissioners. It’s the strongest language Carr has used to date to urge action on TikTok. With more than 200 million downloads in the U.S. alone, the popular app is becoming a form of critical information infrastructure — making the app’s ownership by a Chinese parent company a target of growing national security concern.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr says Apple and Google need to remove TikTok from their respective app stores, citing in a tweet “its pattern of surreptitious data practices.” Specifically, Carr was referencing a BuzzFeed News report that officials of TikTok’s Bytedance parent in China had repeatedly been able to access sensitive data of Americans after they downloaded the app from their stores.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr has added his voice to that of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who are calling on the Biden Administration to allow private industry to get internet access to Cubans being denied that access by the Cuban government amid protests there.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr has named Ben Arden to be his chief of staff. Arden had been a legal adviser to Carr since 2019. Arden was previously associate chief of the Media Bureau’s Video Division. Before joining the FCC in 2010, Arden was a communications attorney at Williams Mullen in D.C.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr called an effort by House Democrats to pressure cable providers into removing Fox News and other conservative networks a “chilling transgression” of free speech, and asked his colleagues on the commission to denounce the lawmakers.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr has tripped over himself publicly enthusing about President Trump’s executive order calling on the FCC to police social media. In his attempts to ingratiate himself with the president, he’s forgetting it’s Congress’ decision whether or not to give the agency oversight and enforcement duties over such media. ~ Also, remembering LPTV champion Mike Gravino.

He rails against the “far left’s” hoaxes. He says the World Health Organization has been “beclowned” over its response to the coronavirus. And he describes a “secret and partisan surveillance machine” run by House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff. Those aren’t President Donald Trump’s words. They came from Brendan Carr, the junior Republican on the FCC, who is embracing a flavor of distinctly Trumpian rhetoric that could help him leapfrog his way to the chairmanship of the five-member regulatory agency.

The FCC is proposing to help promote broadcasting as a new competitive broadband pipe by making it clear that legacy broadcast TV ownership regulations do not apply to broadcast-delivered internet services like over-the-top video and data. That is according to FCC commissioner Brendan Carr, who has been working on a draft declaratory ruling and notice of proposed rulemaking he says the FCC plans to vote on at its June public meeting.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr told KDKA-AM Pittsburgh conservative radio show host Wendy Bell Wednesday evening (April 15) that groups like Free Press — he did not name them but made it clear who he was talking about — “are engaged in a sweeping and dangerous attempt to weaponize the FCC against political actors” it doesn’t like.

The FCC has taken flak for trying to free up spectrum in a band (2.5 GHz) used — or FCC Republicans would argue, underused — by educational broadband services (EBS), but Republican commissioner Brendan Carr says that some “national organizations” may be “siphoning millions of dollars” for purposes other than providing the teaching or educational material required, including for political activity.

FCC Commissioners Michael O’Rielly, Brendan Carr and Geoffrey Starks weighed in on localization and local broadcasters’ coverage of crises during an NAB Show panel session.

The chairman and commissioners will appear at two different sessions at next month’s  Las Vegas gathering.

After holds from Democrats that were lifted late last year, the Senate has confirmed FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr to a full, five-year term and has confirmed Democrat Geoffrey Starks to the open seat. Both had already been approved by the Senate Commerce Committee, Starks in June and Carr a year ago this month for his current hitch filling out an unexpired term.

Sen. Joe Manchin has placed a hold on Republican Commissioner Brendan Carr’s renomination Thursday, a week after FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the agency’s Mobility Fund Phase II program would be suspended temporarily while regulators investigate whether major wireless carriers submitted false data on their coverage maps.