Government & Communications

On July 15, 2026, Judge John D. Bates of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a decision that could revive a federal grant program the President declared dead more than a year ago. In National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) v. Trump (Civil Action No. 25-3606), the court held that the Digital Equity Act of 2021 contains an unconstitutional racial classification, but that this single flaw does not doom the law.

The Federal Communications Commission anticipates rechartering of the Consumer Protection and Accessibility Advisory Committee (Committee) and solicits nominations for membership. The FCC has consulted with the Committee Management Secretariat, General Service Administration, and intends to recharter the Committee for a period of two (2) years. The renewed charter will become effective on or before October 9, 2026.

We analyzed the Federal Communications Commission's latest Serviceable Location Fabric (v9) and the latest Broadband Data Collection (BDC) data release (2025-12-31, which uses Fabric v8) to see how many locations awarded  Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program funds for satellite service are either (1) no longer included in the Fabric as broadband-serviceable locations or (2) are already “served.” About 35 percent of locations awarded BEAD funds for satellite service are likely no longer in need (42% if unlicensed fixed wireless is included).

Every few years, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) tells Congress and the public what it intends to do with its authority. The agency's strategic plan is not a rulemaking and creates no legal obligations, but it is the framework around which the FCC builds its annual performance plan and budget request to Congress. The strategic plan also serves as the yardstick against which the agency's own annual performance reports—and outside overseers like the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)—measure whether the FCC did what it said it would do.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr announced the agenda for the FCC August Open Commission Meeting. The agenda includes:

What I’ve realized is that responsible A.I. governance may really come down to something resembling a First Amendment approach. Large language models, to me, are simply artifacts: objects made from the language expressed by tens of millions of people. And Anthropic, to me, is a software publisher. I do not see Claude as a living thing; I see it as a reference work prone to glitching, a surreal encyclopedia with wild side effects.

A new rule proposed by the White House Office of Management and Budget would fundamentally overhaul the way federal grants are awarded and overseen — a sweeping change that one scientific society said “would all but end the use of scientific merit in the selection of grants and programs across the government.” Proposed in late May, the rule would give political appointees unprecedented control over f

From 2020 through 2024, Congress appropriated over $82 billion to programs across multiple agencies to expand broadband access. In a number of reports in recent years, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, Congress’s watchdog that investigates how the federal government spends taxpayer dollars, recommended that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration better communicate the financial sustainability of broadband projects to Congress and improve collaboration with the other federal agencies that fund broadband deployment.

The White House in late May proposed a rule that would cement its control over essentially all federal grant making, including research funding and Education Department grants. Among other changes, the proposal from the Office of Management and Budget says political appointees, not peer reviewers, would be the primary deciders of who gets grants, and says officials could yank funding even after it’s

I write to request that you extend the comment period for the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) proposed rule, Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance, and that you meaningfully address stakeholder feedback on the rule and the impacts it is likely to have on small and rural communities and scientific and biomedical research. The proposed rule would make extensive changes to the Guidance for Federal Financial Assistance (‘Uniform Guidance’), the government-wide framework for administering grants, cooperative agreements, and other forms of assistance.