Sen. Cruz Questions Commissioners of the Federal Communications Commission

Thank you to each of you. Chairman Carr, let's start with free speech. I think you would agree that the FCC's public interest standard has been weaponized against conservatives in the past. In 2018, Senate Democrats tried to pressure the FCC to use the public interest standard to stop Sinclair Broadcasting Group from acquiring Tribune Media. In 2023, leftists sought to stop a routine renewal of a Fox-owned broadcast station over complaints about 2020 election coverage. Do you agree that that was wrong? Yes, Senator, I agree. And those are cases, in fact, where rather than following FCC precedent, the agency broke from it and did so in a weaponized way. Now, another area of agreement between you and I is that Jimmy Kimmel is angry, overtly partisan, and profoundly unfunny. That, sadly, is true for most late-night comedians today who seem to have been collectively broken by President Trump's election. Jimmy's remarks about Charlie Kirk were tasteless, and ABC and its affiliates would have been fully within their rights to fire him or simply to no longer air his program. That was their choice. But what government cannot do is force private entities to take actions that the government cannot take directly. Government officials threatening adverse consequences for disfavored content is an unconstitutional coercion that chills protected speech. This is why it was so insidious how the Biden administration jawboned social media into shutting down conservatives online over accurate information on COVID or voter fraud. My Democrat colleagues were persistently silent over that scandal, but I welcome them now having discovered the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights. Democrat or Republican, we cannot have the government arbitrating truth or opinion. Mr. Chairman, my question is this. So long as there is a public interest standard, shouldn't it be understood to encompass robust First Amendment protections to ensure that the FCC cannot use it to chill speech? Yes, Senator, I agree with you there. And I think the examples you laid out of weaponization during the Biden years are perfect examples. The Fox case you mentioned was a renewal for a broadcast TV license, and petitioners sought to have the FCC not renew it based on content that aired on a separate cable channel. In the cable context, it's entirely different. There's no license, there's no public interest standard. So first and foremost, we have to make sure the FCC is hewing to precedent. Similarly, we saw Democrats in Congress write letters to cable companies pressuring them to drop Fox News, OAN, and Newsmax because they disagree with the political perspectives of those cable channels. And there again, it was cable, no broadcast license, no public interest standard. So the FCC has to write within the four corners of our precedents to be consistent with the Communications Act in the First Amendment concerns as well. All right, let's shift to spectrum. One of the biggest economic and national security wins in the Working Families Tax Cut Act was restoring the FCC's auction authority and creating the largest spectrum pipeline, 800 megahertz of U.S. spectrum, in U.S. history. It won't just bring faster and cheaper wireless to consumers, but it will keep the United States competitive in the global 6G race against communist China. I'm encouraged that the FCC has already begun the process of freeing up potentially as much as 180 megahertz of C-band spectrum. Chairman Carr, is the Commission on track to meet the law's spectrum deadlines and to fully deliver on the bill's obligations? Yes, Senator. And again, thank you to you for restoring the FCC's auction authority. We had fallen into a deep spectrum malaise during the Biden years. We were losing our leadership position. Right now, we're very actively working with our partners across government, Department of Transportation, FAA, NTIA. We're all aligned to deliver on the statutory deadline of July 2027 for that auction. And what will the benefits to consumers be of 800 megahertz of spectrum being made available for auction for the private sector? First of all, this will allow us to catch back up to China. When President Trump left at the end of his Trump 45 administration, we had leapfrogged China and were set up in a very good position. But then we didn't move forward. Any new spectrum bands in China moved ahead. So this is important for national security, but also for prices for consumers. The data shows when we free up more spectrum, we can allow providers, for instance, to compete for in-home broadband. And when they do that with wireless, we've seen that cable modem prices dropped by 37% where they used to have a monopoly. So it's good for our economy, for innovation, and for prices for consumers as well. Commissioner Trustee, how does the spectrum auction pipeline and the working families tax cut help position the United States for success at the 2027 World Radio Conference? Yes, thank you so much for the question, Senator. And thank you again for your leadership in restoring the FCC's general spectrum auction authority and creating this long-term spectrum pipeline. I think these spectrum provisions are foundational to developing a unified strategy going into the next World Radio Communications Conference, where we can focus on key U.S. interests. We can work with our international allies in advance to preempt those who are seeking to undermine U.S. interests at the conference in Shanghai, China. In 2023, at the last World Radio Communications Conference, we didn't have this kind of legislative backing or support. We didn't have auction authority. We didn't have a long-term spectrum pipeline. And so we were sidelined on very important conversations. Now that we have this authority, thanks to your leadership, we can constructively and meaningfully engage in these conversations that I think position us better to come out of this conference with wins that are essential for our economic and national security and global leadership in next-generation communications technologies. Terrific. Thank you. Ranking Member Cantwell.