By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON, Dec 17 (Reuters) – The Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday deleted a longstanding reference to the agency’s independence just minutes after a Democratic senator questioned the agency’s Republican head on the telecom regulator’s authority.
Senator Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico asked FCC Chair Brendan Carr if the commission was an independent agency and after several attempts Carr said it was not.
“On your website, it just simply says the FCC is independent. This isn’t a trick question, OK?” Lujan said. “Is your website wrong? Is your website lying?” Lujan read the language from the site that said the FCC is an independent U.S. government agency overseen by Congress.
“The FCC is not an independent agency, formally speaking,” Carr said, saying President Donald Trump could remove commissioners without cause.
Shortly after that exchange, the language on the website was changed. An FCC spokesperson said “with the change in Administration earlier this year, the FCC’s website and materials required updating. That work continues to ensure that they reflect the positions of the agency’s new leadership.”
Congress and the FCC for decades have insisted the five-member FCC is independent and criticized prior White House officials for seeking to tell the agency what to do. The commission traditionally is divided 3-2 between the political parties.
Trump on Wednesday stepped up his ongoing attacks against major U.S. broadcast networks for news content he disliked, saying Comcast-owned NBC and Walt Disney-owned ABC should be forced to pay significant money for the public airwaves “and should not be allowed to get away with this any longer!” He has repeatedly pressed Carr to take action against broadcast networks.
Trump has not named any Democratic nominees to commissions since taking office and two seats remain open, Senator Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington, said.
Trump in February issued an executive order requiring agencies including the FCC to submit proposed regulations to the White House for review before voting on them.
Senator Andy Kim, a Democrat from New Jersey, criticized Carr and noted he had previously touted the independence of the agency before Congress. “Trump is not your boss,” Kim said.
FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, a Democrat, criticized the move, saying, “no edit to a website can erase the longstanding congressional intent to create a multi-party, independent regulatory agency like the FCC that is accountable to Congress and the American people, not the whims of the White House.”
Trump has repeatedly fired Democratic members of boards and commissions that Congress said were supposed to be independent.
Earlier this month, U.S. Supreme Court justices signaled they will uphold the legality of Trump’s firing of a Federal Trade Commission member and give a historic boost to presidential power. The Justice Department urged the court to overturn a 1935 case that has constrained presidential power by protecting the heads of independent agencies from removal.
(Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
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