Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr appeared before a House oversight hearing on Wednesday and responded to a wide range of partisan questioning over his actions since he became leader of the government agency.
All three FCC commissioners appeared before the committee, including Olivia Trusty and Anna Gomez. The spotlight was mostly on Carr and his deregulatory policies since taking over as chairman in early 2025.
However, Gomez, the lone Democratic commissioner, also had a prominent role in answering questions from House Energy and Commerce committee members.
[This article originally appeared in our sister publication, Radio World.]
Defining public interest
The committee’s Democrats asked pointed questions about Carr’s definition of “public interest” and the role it plays in FCC policymaking. Carr was strident in defending the use of the public interest standard when managing broadcast licenses.
“What the Supreme Court has said on this issue is that, quote: ‘No one has a First Amendment right to a license.’ So the FCC enforcing the public interest standard on broadcasters, according to the Supreme Court, doesn’t violate the First Amendment and doesn’t constitute censorship,” Carr said.
When fielding a question about the standard from ranking member Rep. Doris Matsui, the top Democrat on the telecom subcommittee, Carr said: “The FCC has an obligation to enforce the public interest, and that’s very unique as to broadcasters. Again, if you step back, broadcasters are unique among all other distributors of news and information because they have a license.”
Carr continued: “Among all other distributors of information or even data, they have a license given them by the federal government and that necessarily means the government has excluded other voices that might have wanted to use those airwaves; and so they have an obligation to stand not just in their own shoes, but in the shoes of their entire community of license. And that means they have to operate differently than a cable channel or a podcast or social media.”
Commissioner Gomez suggested Congress should impose “guardrails” for the FCC to follow in defining the public interest standard.
Meanwhile, Carr faced harsh criticism from Democrats but effusive praise from Republicans for his handling of FCC matters early in his tenure as chairman.
Democrats on the committee zeroed in on Carr’s recent claim that the FCC is not an independent agency. Critics on the committee questioned the legitimacy of Carr’s claim.
When asked directly if he made the statement, Carr replied: “I said the FCC is not, formally speaking, an independent agency.”
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) said Carr has engaged in “quid pro quo” in favor of the president, and is abusing his power to violate Americans’ rights.
“Our duty to conduct oversight of the FCC has never been more critical than it is today, because in Trump’s ongoing crusade to chill free speech, punish news networks and vilify American journalism, there has been no greater ally than Chairman Brendan Carr,” Pallone said in opening remarks.
[Related: “Carr Stands Up for His Policies in Senate Hearing”]
Commissioner Gomez answered a question from Pallone about the FCC’s independence:
“Congress set up the FCC as an independent agency because it feared that the agency should not be subject to the whims of one person or one political party. That is why we have an independent multi-member expert body that regulates our communications medium,” Gomez testified.
“So when we declare that we are not independent, what we are doing is not recognizing what Congress wanted when it created this independent agency, but we are also putting way too much power into one person and then doing their political whims.”
New York Rep. Yvette Clarke, a Democrat on the committee, was direct in her criticism of Carr over what she called “the weaponization” of the FCC.
“Less than one year into his tenure, the FCC under Chairman Carr has given this committee many worthy avenues of exploration and oversight, most of which appear to stem from his new role as an obsequious partisan fulfilling President Trump’s desire to exact revenge on his perceived enemies and line the pockets of the oligarch class,” she stated.
However, instead of questioning Carr about his tactics, Clarke turned to Gomez and asked her about why the independence of the FCC is essential to its credibility.
Gomez said it’s important to have an independent agency because it must be seen as an expert body that makes decisions based on that expertise and not based on the policies of one administration.
Ownership caps
There were calls to modernize outdated ownership restrictions and lift the national TV ownership cap from committee chairs Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) and Richard Hudson (R-NC).
Guthrie asked Carr about the importance of media modernization and how removing outdated regulations allows broadcasters to better compete with big tech.
Carr’s reply dealt mostly with television and the loss of balance between local TV stations and television networks.
“One of the main concerns I have with respect to media policy is you have on the one hand all of these individual licensed local TV stations, and on the other hand you have these national programmers, including Disney, Comcast, a handful of others. And over the years historically we had a balance between the national programmers and the licensed local TV stations,” he said.
“But recently what we’ve seen is those national programmers have just consolidated and amassed a massive amount of power. And we’re losing that balance between the national programmers and the actual local TV stations.”
Carr had emphasized in his opening statement that the FCC is working to “empower local broadcasters to serve the public interest and meet the needs of their communities.”
The commission is considering changes to broadcast ownership rules as part of its quadrennial review process.
Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Calif) described Carr as “a tool of President Trump’s Project 2025 agenda,” and said Carr’s ultimate plan is to “suppress freedom of speech and those who criticize Trump and to forcefully favor Trump’s billionaire friends and supporters in order to control the content.”
Ruiz asked Gomez about the wisdom of further broadcast consolidation.
“What happens when we have too much consolidation by these national corporations that own these local broadcasters is we lose the diversity of voices and we lose that local news content. Couple that with the defunding of public media and we are also losing even more voices in our local communities,” Gomez said.
Spectrum authority
Republicans on Wednesday asked mostly about telecom issues, including the expansion of high-speed internet and the FCC’s renewed spectrum authority.
Texas Rep. August Pfluger was among those asking Carr about the FCC’s timeline to make additional spectrum available for 5G and other wireless services. The FCC’s authority to hold spectrum auctions had lapsed under the Biden administration.
“We’re finalizing rules for the upper C-band, which will clear at least 100 megahertz,” Carr said. “We’ve sought comment on clearing up to 180 Megahertz. There’s also active work underway on the 7 gigahertz band, on the 2.7 Gigahertz band, and even unlicensed.
“Again, this month alone we’re voting to supercharge Wi-Fi by allowing higher power devices. In addition, we are clearing the barriers in the secondary markets so spectrum that wasn’t fully loaded, that could have been sitting fallow, is moving into the hands of carriers that are loading it and lighting it up and increasing speed.”
Congress has authorized the FCC to auction off 800 MHz of spectrum for commercial broadband by 2034.
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[This article originally appeared in our sister publication Radio World. You can access their full coverage of business, legal and regulatory issues here.]
