C&T Subcommittee Holds Hearing on Oversight of the Federal Communications Commission

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Congressman Richard Hudson (NC-09), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, led a hearing titled Oversight of the Federal Communications Commission.

“The FCC had an active 2025 that can be summed up in one word: deregulation,” said Chairman Hudson. “Under Chairman Carr, the FCC has taken significant steps to reduce barriers to broadband deployment, modernize outdated regulatory regimes, and delete obsolete rules.”

Watch the full hearing here.

Below are key excerpts from today’s hearing:

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Congressman Bob Latta (OH-05): “We’d have discussions when we talked about 4G, 5G, 6G, and I’d always ask this question: are we winning the race? Who’s our competitor out there? [...] So, are we winning this race out there when we talk about 6G?” Chairman Carr: “We are. We had fallen behind, in my view, during the Biden years. And now, we’ve hit the accelerator, and we are going to be leading the world once again.”

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Congresswoman Kat Cammack (FL-03): “So many of these robocalls and some of these scam texts originate from overseas [...] Talk to me about your coordination efforts with your counterparts overseas and what we need to do here in Congress to strengthen that.” Chairman Carr: “We are pursuing, at the FCC, the idea that if you get a call on your phone from abroad, it shouldn’t necessarily, in my view, display a U.S.-based area code, because that could mislead someone to think that this is a call originating in the U.S. So, if you’re a company and you want to have a call center overseas, at least be truthful and honest with your customers. So, we’re looking at that. We’re looking at potentially doing standards for call centers to make sure that foreign call centers are compliant with our customer service regulations. So, a lot of effort was taken on that front.”

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Congressman Russell Fry (SC-07): “During the first Trump administration, they unlocked additional 6-GHz bandwidth in 2020. When the first Trump administration made that available, nearly 70 countries followed our lead. Now China is trying to undermine those efforts in Europe. And we’re hearing good things out of the Trump administration defending that broadband. You’ve talked about the importance of Wi-Fi to American innovation. Can you explain why it's pivotal that America lead on Wi-Fi?” Commissioner Trusty: “Absolutely. As I mentioned a little earlier, I’ve been a proponent of an all-of-the-above approach to spectrum policy, where we accommodate a variety of users, use cases, and technologies. When you look at things like CBRS (Citizens Broadband Radio Service), the United States has long been a leader in innovative uses of spectrum, and CBRS is a model for that. It accommodates the military, transportation, logistics, tracking, schools, hospitals, and much more. My job at the FCC is to ensure spectrum is being put to its highest and best use. Given all of these use cases, I think it emphasizes the meaningful benefit of CBRS and unlicensed spectrum.”

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