An august August

As we approach August in D.C., the city tends to get a little less busy. People start thinking about vacations. Congress goes out of session. And D.C. traffic eases just a little bit. But here at the FCC, the agency's staff is continuing to churn out notable wins. So we will be voting on another august agenda next month.

Since the start of the Trump Administration, the FCC has been positioning America to lead the world in the emerging direct-to-device (D2D) segment. High-speed connections direct from a satellite to your smartphone or other device anywhere in the world could be a real gamechanger for consumers. Thanks to the FCC's framework and a series of facilitating actions, the U.S. now stands to benefit from this technology before any other nation. We take another step in advancing America's leading role in D2D this month.

First up on our August agenda, we will vote on a proposal to open up more than 200 megahertz of unlicensed spectrum for D2D offerings. This continues our efforts to supercharge American innovation in the D2D sector. Our recent FCC decisions on D2D have brought regulatory clarity and spurred nearly $50 billion in D2D spectrum deals over the last year alone.

Second, the FCC will consider reforms to modernize the administration of the nearly $9 billion a year Universal Service Fund through a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would improve oversight, reduce administrative costs, and increase accountability of USAC and its Board of Directors. Picking up on our efforts to conduct a top-to-bottom review of all aspects of USF, this NPRM reviews the structure and operating costs of USAC and USF administration for the first time since the FCC first selected the Administrator.

Next, the FCC will vote on an order to eliminate the outdated national broadcast ownership cap in favor of a new case-by-case approach. Previously, the cap operated as a blanket prohibition on any deal that would combine stations in excess of the FCC's 39% limit-regardless of whether it was a good deal or a bad one for the country. Our new approach would allow the FCC to approve deals that exceed the 39% cap, but only if doing so would promote the public interest.

This action is key to supporting local journalism. While the FCC adopted the cap to protect local broadcasters, it now operates to hold them back. Their competitors, including those in digital media, are free to compete in 100% of the relevant markets. But this outdated FCC rule prevents local broadcasters from competing on anything resembling a level playing field-denying them the scale to invest in local news.

The FCC has tried clinging to rules like the cap before and the results speak for themselves. For decades, the FCC kept rules in place that prevented investment in local newspapers. Flash forward to today, thousands of newspapers have shuttered and up to 80% of local journalism jobs have vanished. The FCC should give local broadcasters and the talented journalists that work there a fighting chance.

Finally, the FCC will consider a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would propose reforms to the Rural Health Care Program. The item aims to cut red tape, reduce administrative burdens on program participants, and ensure that limited program funding reaches the rural hospitals and clinics that need it most, given increased program participation and service costs.

Thank you again to the FCC's great staff for delivering on another packed agenda and good set of wins for the country.