ted cruz

Senators try to halt shuttle move, saying “little evidence” of public demand

Bring the Space Shutle Home Act, Chantilly, Committee on Appropriations, Dick Durbin, discovery, John Corbyn, letter, mark kelly, mark warner, National Air and Space Museum, One Big Beautiful Bill, Senate, senators, Smithsonian, Space, space center houston, Space exploration, space history, Space shuttle, Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, ted cruz, texas, Tim Kaine, Virginia / DJ Henderson / September 29, 2025

“Houston’s disappointment in not being selected is wholly understandable,” the four senators wrote, “but removing an item from the National Collection is not a viable solution.”

In July, Cornyn and Cruz successfully added language to the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” championed by President Donald Trump, which enabled acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy to then identify Discovery for relocation. The provision also called for $85 million to be made available to transport and display the shuttle in Houston.

“There are also profound financial challenges associated with this transfer,” wrote Kelly. Warner, Kaine, and Durbin. “The Smithsonian estimates that transporting Discovery from Virginia to Houston could cost more than $50 million, with another $325 million needed for planning, exhibit reconstruction, and new facilities.”

“Dedicating hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to move an artifact that is already housed, displayed, and preserved in a world-class facility is both inefficient and unjustifiable,” the senators wrote.

Risks and rewards

Then there are the logistical challenges with relocating Discovery, which could result in damaging it, “permanently diminishing its historical and cultural value for future generations.”

“Moving Discovery by barge or road would be far more complex [than previous shuttle moves], exposing it to saltwater, weather, and collision risks across a journey several times longer,” the letter reads. “As a one-of-a-kind artifact that has already endured the stresses of spaceflight, Discovery is uniquely vulnerable to these hazards. The heat tiles that enabled repeated shuttle missions become more fragile with age, and they are irreplaceable.”

Kelly, who previously lived in Houston when he was part of the space program, agrees that the city is central to NASA’s human spaceflight efforts, but, along with Warner, Kaine, and Durbin, points out that displaying Discovery would come with another cost: an admission fee, limiting public access to the shuttle.

“The Smithsonian is unique among museums for providing visitors with access to a national treasure meant to inspire the American public without placing economic barriers,” wrote the senators.

Under the terms of the act, NASA has until January 4, 2027 (18 months after the bill’s enactment) to transfer Discovery to Space Center Houston. For its part, the Smithsonian says that it owns the title to Discovery and, as the institution is not part of the federal government, the orbiter is no longer the government’s to move.

Senators try to halt shuttle move, saying “little evidence” of public demand Read More »

Rocket Report: Neutron’s pad opens for business; SpaceX gets Falcon 9 green light

rocket report, sls, Space, starship, ted cruz / DJ Henderson / September 5, 2025

All the news that’s fit to lift

“Nobody’s waving the white flag here until the last hour of the last day.”

Image of a Starlink launch on Falcon 9 this week. Credit: SpaceX

Welcome to Edition 8.09 of the Rocket Report! The biggest news of the week happened inside the Beltway rather than on a launch pad somewhere. In Washington, DC, Congress has pushed back on the Trump administration’s plan to stop flying the Space Launch System rocket after Artemis III. Congress made it clear that it wants to keep the booster in business for a long time. The big question now is whether the Trump White House will blink.

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Israel launches SAR satellite. The Israel Ministry of Defense, Israel Defense Forces, and Israel Aerospace Industries successfully launched the Ofek 19 satellite on Tuesday from the Palmachim Airbase. The launch was carried out by the country’s solid-propellant Shavit 2 rocket. Ofek 19 is a synthetic aperture radar observation satellite with enhanced capabilities, 7 Israel National News reports.

A unique launch posture … This was the seventh launch of the Shavit-2 vehicle, which made its debut in June 2007. The most recent launch prior to this week occurred in March 2023. Because of its geographic location and difficult relations with surrounding countries, Israel launches its rockets to the west, over the Mediterranean Sea. (submitted by MarkW98)

Canadian launch firm invests in launch site. Earlier this summer, Reaction Dynamics, an Ontario-based launch company, closed on a Series A funding round worth $10 million. This will support the next phase of development of the Canadian company’s hybrid propulsion system, of which an initial suborbital demonstration flight is planned for this winter. Now the company has taken some of this funding and invested in a launch site in Nova Scotia, SpaceQ reports.

Getting in on the ground floor … In a transaction worth $1.2 million, Reaction Dynamics is investing in Maritime Launch Services, which is developing the Spaceport Nova Scotia facility. Reaction Dynamics intends to launch its Aurora-8 rocket from the Canadian launch site. Bachar Elzein, the CEO of Reaction Dynamics, said the move made sense for two reasons. The first is that it secures “a spot to launch our very first orbital rocket,” with Elzein adding, “we believe in their vision,” and thus wanted to invest. That second factor had to do with all the work, the heavy lifting, MLS has done to date, to build a spaceport from the ground up. (submitted by JoeyS)

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MaiaSpace completes tank tests. French rocket builder and ArianeGroup subsidiary MaiaSpace announced the completion of a monthslong test campaign that subjected several subscale prototypes of its propellant tanks to high-pressure burst tests, European Spaceflight reports. Over the course of six months, the company conducted 15 “burst” tests of subscale propellant tanks. Burst tests push tanks to failure to assess their structural limits and ensure they can safely withstand pressures well beyond normal operating conditions.

Working toward space … The data collected will be used to validate mechanical models that will inform the final design of the full-scale propellant tanks. The tests come as MaiaSpace continues to work toward the debut flight of its Maia rocket, which could take place in 2027 from French Guiana. At present, the company intends the rocket to have a lift capacity of 1.5 metric tons to low-Earth orbit.

Orienspace secures B+ round funding. Chinese commercial rocket company Orienspace has raised tens of millions of dollars in Series B+ financing as it moves towards a key test flight, Space News reports. Orienspace secured funding of between $27 million and $124 million, according to the Chinese-language Taibo Network. The capital will be used mainly for the follow-up development and mass production of the Gravity-2 medium-lift liquid launch vehicle.

Not a small rocket … The company will soon begin comprehensive ground verification tests for the Gravity-2 and is scheduled to carry out its first flight test by the end of this year. In July, Orienspace successfully conducted a hot fire test of a Gravity-2 kerosene-liquid oxygen first-stage engine, including gimbal and valve system evaluations. Gravity-2 is expected to lift on the order of 20 metric tons to low-Earth orbit.

Rocket Lab unveils Neutron launch complex. As Rocket Lab prepares to roll out its new Neutron, the firm recently unveiled the launch complex from which the vehicle will fly, DefenseNews reports. Located within the Virginia Space Authority’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Wallops Island, the facility, dubbed Launch Complex 3, will support testing, launch, and return missions for the reusable rocket. Rocket Lab sees Neutron as a contender to help ease the bottleneck in demand from both commercial and military customers for a ride to space. Today, that demand is largely being met by a single provider in the medium-lift market, SpaceX.

A launch this year? … It sounds unlikely. During the event, Rocket Lab founder Peter Beck said that although he believes the company’s plan to launch this year is within reach, the schedule is aggressive with no margin for error. Speaking with reporters at the launch site, Beck said the company has some key testing in the coming months to qualify key stages of the rocket, which will give it a better idea of whether it can meet that 2025 timeline. “Nobody’s waving the white flag here until the last hour of the last day,” he said. This one is unlikely to break Berger’s Law, however.

SpaceX obtains approval to ramp up Falcon 9 cadence. The Federal Aviation Administration issued a record of decision on Wednesday approving SpaceX’s plan to more than double the number of Falcon 9 launches from Space Launch Complex-40 (SLC-40), the busiest of the company’s four operational launch pads. The FAA concluded that the proposed launch rate “would not significantly impact the quality of the human environment,” Ars reports.

Reaching ludicrous speed … The environmental review paves the way for SpaceX to launch up to 120 Falcon 9 rockets per year from SLC-40, an increase from 50 launches covered in a previous FAA review in 2020. Since then, the FAA has issued SpaceX temporary approval to go beyond 50 launches from SLC-40. For example, SpaceX launched 62 of its overall 132 Falcon 9 flights last year from SLC-40. SpaceX’s goal for this year is 170 Falcon 9 launches, and the company is on pace to come close to this target.

NASA sets date for science mission. NASA said Thursday that a trio of spacecraft to study the Sun will launch no earlier than September 23, on a Falcon 9 rocket. The missions include NASA’s IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe), NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory, and NOAA’s SWFO-L1 (Space Weather Follow On-Lagrange 1) spacecraft. After launching from Kennedy Space Center, the spacecraft will travel together to their destination at the first Earth-Sun Lagrange point (L1), around 1 million miles from Earth toward the Sun.

Fun in the Sun … The missions will each focus on different effects of the solar wind and space weather, from their origins at the Sun to their farthest reaches billions of miles away at the edge of our Solar System. Research and observations from the missions will help us better understand the Sun’s influence on Earth’s habitability, map our home in space, and protect satellites and voyaging astronauts and airline crews from space weather impacts.

Starship’s heat shield shows promise. One of the key issues ahead of last week’s test of SpaceX’s Starship vehicle was the performance of the upper stage heat shield, Ars reports. When the vehicle landed in the Indian Ocean, it had a decidedly orange tint. So what gives? SpaceX founder Elon Musk provided some clarity after the flight, saying, “Worth noting that the heat shield tiles almost entirely stayed attached, so the latest upgrades are looking good! The red color is from some metallic test tiles that oxidized and the white is from insulation of areas where we deliberately removed tiles.”

A step toward the goal … The successful test and additional information from Musk suggest that SpaceX is making progress on developing a heat shield for Starship. This really is the key technology to make an upper stage rapidly reusable—NASA’s space shuttle orbiters were reusable but required a standing army to refurbish the vehicle between flights. To unlock Starship’s potential, SpaceX wants to be able to refly Starships within 24 hours.

Ted Cruz emerges as key SLS defender. All of the original US senators who created and sustained NASA’s Space Launch System rocket over the last 15 years—Bill Nelson, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and Richard Shelby—have either retired or failed to win reelection. However, Ars reports that a new champion has emerged to continue the fight: Texas Republican Ted Cruz. As part of its fiscal year 2026 budget, the White House sought to end funding for the Space Launch System rocket after the Artemis III mission, and also cancel the Lunar Gateway, an orbital space station that provides a destination for the rocket.

Money for future missions … However, Cruz subsequently crafted a NASA provision tacked onto President Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill.” The Cruz addendum provided $6.7 billion in funding for two additional SLS missions, Artemis IV and Artemis V, and to continue Gateway construction. In several hearings this year, Cruz has made it clear that his priorities for human spaceflight are to beat China back to the Moon and maintain a presence there. However, it is now increasingly clear that he views this as only being possible through continued use of NASA’s SLS rocket.

SpaceX seeks to solve Starship prop demands. If SpaceX is going to fly Starships as often as it wants to, it’s going to take more than rockets and launch pads. Tanker trucks have traditionally delivered rocket propellant to launch pads at America’s busiest spaceports in Florida and California. SpaceX has used the same method of bringing propellant for the first several years of operations at Starbase. But a reusable Starship’s scale dwarfs that of other rockets. It stands more than 400 feet tall, with a capacity for more than a million gallons of super-cold liquid methane and liquid oxygen propellants.

That’s a lot of gas … SpaceX also uses large quantities of liquid nitrogen to chill and purge the propellant loading system for Starship. It takes more than 200 tanker trucks traveling from distant refineries to deliver all of the methane, liquid oxygen, and liquid nitrogen for a Starship launch. SpaceX officials recognize this is not an efficient means of conveying these commodities to the launch pad. It takes time, emits pollution, and clogs roadways. SpaceX’s solution to some of these problems is to build its own plants to generate cryogenic fluids. In a new report, Ars explains how the company plans to do this.

Next three launches

September 5: Falcon 9 | Starlink 10-57 | Kennedy Space Center Florida | 11: 29 UTC

September 5: Ceres 1 | Unknown payload | Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China | 11: 35 UTC

September 6: Falcon 9 | Starlink 17-9 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 15: 45 UTC

Eric Berger is the senior space editor at Ars Technica, covering everything from astronomy to private space to NASA policy, and author of two books: Liftoff, about the rise of SpaceX; and Reentry, on the development of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon. A certified meteorologist, Eric lives in Houston.

Rocket Report: Neutron’s pad opens for business; SpaceX gets Falcon 9 green light Read More »

FCC chair teams up with Ted Cruz to block Wi-Fi hotspots for schoolkids

brendan carr, FCC, Policy, ted cruz, wi-fi / Mike M. / September 4, 2025

“Chairman Carr’s moves today are very unfortunate as they further signal that the Commission is no longer prioritizing closing the digital divide,” Schwartzman said. “In the 21st Century, education doesn’t stop when a student leaves school and today’s actions could lead to many students having a tougher time completing homework assignments because their families lack Internet access.”

Biden FCC expanded school and library program

Under then-Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, the FCC expanded its E-Rate program in 2024 to let schools and libraries use Universal Service funding to lend out Wi-Fi hotspots and services that could be used off-premises. The FCC previously distributed Wi-Fi hotspots and other Internet access technology under pandemic-related spending authorized by Congress in 2021, but that program ended. The new hotspot lending program was supposed to begin this year.

Carr argues that when the Congressionally approved program ended, the FCC lost its authority to fund Wi-Fi hotspots for use outside of schools and libraries. “I dissented from both decisions at the time, and I am now pleased to circulate these two items, which will end the FCC’s illegal funding [of] unsupervised screen time for young kids,” he said.

Under Rosenworcel, the FCC said the Communications Act gives it “broad and flexible authority to establish rules governing the equipment and services that will be supported for eligible schools and libraries, as well as to design the specific mechanisms of support.”

The E-Rate program can continue providing telecom services to schools and libraries despite the hotspot component being axed. E-Rate disbursed about $1.75 billion in 2024, but could spend more based on demand because it has a funding cap of about $5 billion per year. E-Rate and other Universal Service programs are paid for through fees imposed on phone companies, which typically pass the cost on to consumers.

FCC chair teams up with Ted Cruz to block Wi-Fi hotspots for schoolkids Read More »

Houston, you’ve got a space shuttle… only NASA won’t say which one

acting administrator, Bring the Space Shutle Home Act, Chantilly, discovery, John Corbyn, NASA, National Air and Space Museum, One Big Beautiful Bill, Sean Duffy, senators, Smithsonian, Space, space center houston, Space exploration, space history, Space shuttle, Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, ted cruz, texas, Virginia / Kelly Newman / August 6, 2025

An orbiter by any other name…

“The acting administrator has made an identification.”

Don’t say Discovery: Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy has decided to send a retired space shuttle to Houston, but won’t say which one. Credit: Smithsonian/collectSPACE.com

The head of NASA has decided to move one of the agency’s retired space shuttles to Houston, but which one seems to still be up in the air.

Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas), who earlier this year introduced and championed an effort to relocate the space shuttle Discovery from the Smithsonian to Space Center Houston, issued a statement on Tuesday evening (August 5) applauding the decision by acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy.

“There is no better place for one of NASA’s space shuttles to be displayed than Space City,” said Cornyn in the statement. “Since the inception of our nation’s human space exploration program, Houston has been at the center of our most historic achievements, from training the best and brightest to voyage into the great unknown to putting the first man on the moon.”

Keeping the shuttle a secret, for some reason

The senator did not state which of NASA’s winged orbiters would be making the move. The legislation that required Duffy to choose a “space vehicle” that had “flown in space” and “carried people” did not specify an orbiter by name, but the language in the “One Big Beautiful Bill” that President Donald Trump signed into law last month was inspired by Cornyn and fellow Texas Senator Ted Cruz’s bill to relocate Discovery.

“The acting administrator has made an identification. We have no further public statement at this time,” said a spokesperson for Duffy in response to an inquiry.

a man with gray hair and pale complexion wears a gray suit and red tie while sitting at a table under a red, white and blue NASA logo on the wall behind him

NASA’s acting administrator, Sean Duffy, identified a retired NASA space shuttle to be moved to “a non-profit near the Johnson Space Center” in Houston, Texas, on Aug. 5, 2025. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

It is not clear why the choice of orbiters is being held a secret. According to the bill, the decision was to be made “with the concurrence of an entity designated” by the NASA administrator to display the shuttle. Cornyn’s release only confirmed that Duffy had identified the location to be “a non-profit near the Johnson Space Center (JSC).”

Space Center Houston is owned by the Manned Space Flight Education Foundation, a 501(c)3 organization, and is the official visitor’s center for NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

“We continue to work on the basis that the shuttle identified is Discovery and proceed with our preparations for its arrival and providing it a world-class home,” Keesha Bullock, interim COO and chief communications and marketing officer at Space Center Houston, said in a statement.

Orbiter owners

Another possible reason for the hesitation to name an orbiter may be NASA’s ability, or rather inability, to identify one of its three remaining space-flown shuttles that is available to be moved.

NASA transferred the title for space shuttle Endeavour to the California Science Center in Los Angeles in 2012, and as such it is no longer US government property. (The science center is a public-private partnership between the state of California and the California Science Center Foundation.)

NASA still owns space shuttle Atlantis and displays it at its own Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida.

Discovery, the fleet leader and “vehicle of record,” was the focus of Cornyn and Cruz’s original “Bring the Space Shuttle Home Act.” The senators said they chose Discovery because it was “the only shuttle still owned by the federal government and able to be transferred to Houston.”

For the past 13 years, Discovery has been on public display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, the annex for the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. As with Endeavour, NASA signed over title upon the orbiter’s arrival at its new home.

As such, Smithsonian officials are clear: Discovery is no longer NASA’s to have or to move.

“The Smithsonian Institution owns the Discovery and holds it in trust for the American public,” read a statement from the National Air and Space Museum issued before Duffy made his decision. “In 2012, NASA transferred ‘all rights, title, interest and ownership’ of the shuttle to the Smithsonian.”

The Smithsonian operates as a trust instrumentality of the United States and is partially funded by Congress, but it is not part of any of the three branches of the federal government.

“The Smithsonian is treated as a federal agency for lots of things to do with federal regulations and state action, but that’s very different than being an agency of the executive branch, which it most certainly is not,” Nick O’Donnell, an attorney who specializes in legal issues in the museum and visual arts communities and co-chairs the Art, Cultural Property, and Heritage Law Committee of the International Bar Association, said in an interview.

a space shuttle orbiter sits at the center of a hangar on display — The Smithsonian has displayed the space shuttle *Discovery* at the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, since April 2012. Credit: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

“If there’s a document that accompanied the transfer of the space shuttle, especially if it says something like, ‘all rights, title, and interest,’ that’s a property transfer, and that’s it,” O’Donnell said.

“NASA has decided to transfer all rights, interest, title, and ownership of Discovery to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum,” reads the signed transfer of ownership for space shuttle orbiter Discovery (OV-103), according to a copy of the paperwork obtained by collectSPACE.

The Congressional Research Service also raised the issue of ownership in its paper, “Transfer of a Space Vehicle: Issues for Congress.”

“The ability of the NASA Administrator to direct transfer of objects owned by non-NASA entities—including the Smithsonian and private organizations—is unclear and may be subject to question. This may, in turn, limit the range of space vehicles that may be eligible for transfer under this provision.”

Defending Discovery

The National Air and Space Museum also raised concerns about the safety of relocating the space shuttle now. The One Big Beautiful Bill allocated $85 million to transport the orbiter and construct a facility to display it. The Smithsonian contends it could be much more costly.

“Removing Discovery from the Udvar-Hazy Center and transporting it to another location would be very complicated and expensive, and likely result in irreparable damage to the shuttle and its components,” the museum’s staff said in a statement. “The orbiter is a fragile object and must be handled according to the standards and equipment NASA used to move it originally, which exceeds typical museum transport protocols.”

“Given its age and condition, Discovery is at even greater risk today. The Smithsonian employs world-class preservation and conservation methods, and maintaining Discovery‘s current conditions is critical to its long-term future,” the museum’s statement concluded.

The law directs NASA to transfer the space shuttle (the identified space vehicle) to Space Center Houston (the entity designated by the NASA administrator) within 18 months of the bill’s enactment, or January 4, 2027.

In the interim, an amendment to block funding the move is awaiting a vote by the full House of Representatives when its members return from summer recess in September.

“The forced removal and relocation of the Space Shuttle Discovery from the Smithsonian Institution’s Air and Space Museum is inappropriate, wasteful, and wrong. Neither the Smithsonian nor American taxpayers should be forced to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on this misguided effort,” said Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY), who introduced the amendment.

A grassroots campaign, KeepTheShutle.org, has also raised objection to removing Discovery from the Smithsonian.

Perhaps the best thing the Smithsonian can do—if indeed it is NASA’s intention to take Discovery—is nothing at all, says O’Donnell.

“I would say the Smithsonian’s recourse is to keep the shuttle exactly where it is. It’s the federal government that has no recourse to take it,” O’Donnell said. “The space shuttle [Discovery] is the Smithsonian’s, and any law that suggests the intention to take it violates the Fifth Amendment on its face—the government cannot take private property.”

Robert Pearlman is a space historian, journalist and the founder and editor of collectSPACE, a daily news publication and online community focused on where space exploration intersects with pop culture. He is also a contributing writer for Space.com and co-author of “Space Stations: The Art, Science, and Reality of Working in Space” published by Smithsonian Books in 2018. He is on the leadership board for For All Moonkind and is a member of the American Astronautical Society’s history committee.

Houston, you’ve got a space shuttle… only NASA won’t say which one Read More »

“It’s a heist”: Senator calls out Texas for trying to steal shuttle from Smithsonian

Bring the Space Shutle Home Act, Chantilly, Dick Durbin, discovery, John Corbyn, NASA, National Air and Space Museum, One Big Beautiful Bill, senators, Smithsonian, Space, space center houston, Space exploration, space history, Space shuttle, Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, ted cruz, texas, Virginia / Shannon Garcia / July 11, 2025

Citing research by NASA and the Smithsonian, Durbin said that the total was closer to $305 million and that did not include the estimated $178 million needed to build a facility to house and display Discovery once in Houston.

Furthermore, it was unclear if Congress even has the right to remove an artifact, let alone a space shuttle, from the Smithsonian’s collection. The Washington, DC, institution, which serves as a trust instrumentality of the US, maintains that it owns Discovery. The paperwork signed by NASA in 2012 transferred “all rights, interest, title, and ownership” for the spacecraft to the Smithsonian.

“This will be the first time ever in the history of the Smithsonian someone has taken one of their displays and forcibly taken possession of it. What are we doing here? They don’t have the right in Texas to claim this,” said Durbin.

Houston was not the only city to miss out on displaying a retired space shuttle. In 2011, Durbin and fellow Illinois Senator Mark Kirk appealed to NASA to exhibit one of the winged spacecraft at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. The agency ultimately decided to award the shuttles to the National Air and Space Museum, the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida, and the California Science Center in Los Angeles.

Houston, we have a problem

A prototype orbiter that was exhibited where Discovery is now was transferred to the Intrepid Museum in New York City.

To be able to bring up his points at Thursday’s hearing, Durbin introduced the “Houston, We Have a Problem” amendment to “prohibit the use of funds to transfer a decommissioned space shuttle from one location to another location.”

He then withdrew the amendment after having voiced his objections.

“I think we’re dealing with something called waste. Eighty-five million dollars worth of waste. I know that this is a controversial issue, and I know that there are other agencies, Smithsonian, NASA, and others that are interested in this issue; I’m going to withdraw this amendment, but I’m going to ask my colleagues to be honest about it,” said Durbin. “I hope that we think about this long and hard.”

“It’s a heist”: Senator calls out Texas for trying to steal shuttle from Smithsonian Read More »

Ted Cruz gives up on AI law moratorium, joins 99-1 vote against his own plan

AI, Policy, Senate, ted cruz / 9u50fv / July 1, 2025

Cruz blamed “outside interests”

After the compromise fell apart, the Senate voted 99-1 for Blackburn’s amendment to remove the AI provision from the budget bill. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) cast the only vote against the amendment.

“Cruz ultimately got behind Blackburn’s amendment early Tuesday, acknowledging that ‘many of my colleagues would prefer not to vote on this matter,'” according to The Hill. Cruz said the five-year moratorium had support from President Trump and “protected kids and protected the rights of creative artists, but outside interests opposed that deal.”

However, Blackburn was quoted as saying that they “weren’t able to come to a compromise that would protect our governors, our state legislators, our attorney generals and, of course, House members who have expressed concern over this language… what we know is this—this body has proven that they cannot legislate on emerging technology.”

Cantwell pointed out that many state government officials from both major parties opposed the Cruz plan. “Despite several revisions by its author and misleading assurances about its true impact, state officials from across the country, including 17 Republican Governors and 40 state attorneys general, as well [as] conservative and liberal organizations—from the Heritage Foundation to the Center for American Progress—rallied against the harmful proposal,” Cantwell’s office said.

Cantwell and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) had also filed an amendment to strip the AI moratorium from the bill. Markey said yesterday that “the Blackburn-Cruz so-called compromise is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Despite Republican efforts to hide the true impact of the AI moratorium, the language still allows the Trump administration to use federal broadband funding as a weapon against the states and still prevents states from protecting children online from Big Tech’s predatory behavior.”

Cantwell said at a recent press conference that 24 states last year started “regulating AI in some way, and they have adopted these laws that fill a gap while we are waiting for federal action.” Yesterday, she called the Blackburn/Cruz compromise “another giveaway to tech companies” that “gives AI and social media a brand-new shield against litigation and state regulation.”

Ted Cruz gives up on AI law moratorium, joins 99-1 vote against his own plan Read More »

Ted Cruz can’t get all Republicans to back his fight against state AI laws

AI, Policy, ted cruz / Shannon Garcia / June 25, 2025

Cruz plan moves ahead but was reportedly watered down amid Republican opposition.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) presides over a subcommittee hearing on June 3, 2025 in Washington, DC. Credit: Getty Images | Chip Somodevilla

A Republican proposal to penalize states that regulate artificial intelligence can move forward without requiring approval from 60 senators, the Senate parliamentarian decided on Saturday. But the moratorium on state AI laws did not have unanimous Republican support and has reportedly been watered down in an effort to push it toward passage.

In early June, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) proposed enforcing a 10-year moratorium on AI regulation by making states ineligible for broadband funding if they try to impose any limits on development of artificial intelligence. While the House previously approved a version of the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” with an outright 10-year ban on state AI regulation, Cruz took a different approach because of the Senate rule that limits inclusion of “extraneous matter” in budget reconciliation legislation.

Under the Senate’s Byrd rule, a senator can object to a potentially extraneous budget provision. A motion to waive the Byrd rule requires a vote of 60 percent of the Senate.

As originally drafted, Cruz’s backdoor ban on state AI laws would have made it impossible for states to receive money from the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program if they try to regulate AI. He tied the provision into the budget bill by proposing an extra $500 million for the broadband-deployment grant program and expanding its purpose to also subsidize construction and deployment of infrastructure for artificial intelligence systems.

Punchbowl News reported today that Cruz made changes in order to gain more Republican support and comply with Senate procedural rules. Cruz was quoted as saying that under his current version, states that regulate AI would only be shut out of the $500 million AI fund.

This would seem to protect states’ access to the $42 billion broadband deployment fund that will offer subsidies to ISPs that expand access to Internet service. Losing that funding would be a major blow to states that have spent the last couple of years developing plans to connect more of their residents to modern broadband. The latest Senate bill text was not available today. We contacted Cruz’s office and will update this article if we get a response.

A spokesperson for Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) told Ars today that Cruz’s latest version could still prevent states from getting broadband funding. The text has “a backdoor to apply new AI requirements to the entire $42.45 billion program, not just the new $500 million,” Cantwell’s representative said.

Plan has opponents from both parties

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled that several parts of the Republican budget bill are subject to the Byrd rule and its 60-vote requirement, but Cruz’s AI proposal wasn’t one of them. A press release from Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) noted that “the parliamentarian’s advice is based on whether a provision is appropriate for reconciliation and conforms to the limitations of the Byrd rule; it is not a judgement on the relative merits of a particular policy.”

Surviving the parliamentarian review doesn’t guarantee passage. A Bloomberg article said the parliamentarian’s decision is “a win for tech companies pushing to stall and override dozens of AI safety laws across the country,” but that the “provision will likely still be challenged on the Senate floor, where stripping the provision would need just a simple majority. Some Republicans in both the House and Senate have pushed back on the AI provision.”

Republicans have a 53–47 edge in the Senate. Cantwell and Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) teamed up for a press conference last week in which they spoke out against the proposed moratorium on state regulation.

Cantwell said that 24 states last year started “regulating AI in some way, and they have adopted these laws that fill a gap while we are waiting for federal action. Now Congress is threatening these laws, which will leave hundreds of millions of Americans vulnerable to AI harm by abolishing those state law protections.”

Blackburn said she agreed with Cantwell that the AI regulation proposal “is not the type of thing that we put into reconciliation bills.” Blackburn added that lawmakers “are working to move forward with legislation at the federal level, but we do not need a moratorium that would prohibit our states from stepping up and protecting citizens in their state.”

Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) have also criticized the idea of stopping states from regulating AI.

Cruz accused states of “strangling AI”

Cruz argued that his proposal stops states “from strangling AI deployment with EU-style regulation.” Under his first proposal, no BEAD funds were to be given to any state or territory that enforces “any law or regulation… limiting, restricting, or otherwise regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems entered into interstate commerce.”

The Cantwell/Blackburn press conference also included Washington Attorney General Nick Brown, a Democrat; and Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, a Republican. Brown said that “Washington has a law that prohibits deep fakes being used against political candidates by mimicking their appearance and their speech,” another “that prohibits sharing fabricated sexual images without consent and provides for penalties for those who possess and distribute such images,” and a third “that prohibits the knowing distribution of forged digital likenesses that can be used to harm or defraud people.”

“All of those laws, in my reading, would be invalid if this was to pass through Congress, and each of those laws are prohibiting and protecting people here in our state,” Brown said.

Skrmetti said that if the Senate proposal becomes law “there would be arguments out there for the big tech companies that the moratorium does, in fact, preclude any enforcement of any consumer protection laws if there’s an AI component to the product that we’re looking at.”

Other Republican plans fail Byrd rule test

Senate Democrats said they are pleased that the parliamentarian ruled that several other parts of the bill are subject to the Byrd rule. “We continue to see Republicans’ blatant disregard for the rules of reconciliation when drafting this bill… Democrats plan to challenge every part of this bill that hurts working families and violates this process,” Merkley said.

Merkley’s press release said the provisions that are subject to a 60-vote threshold include one that “limits certain grant funding for ‘sanctuary cities,’ and where the Attorney General disagrees with states’ and localities’ immigration enforcement,” and another that “gives state and local officials the authority to arrest any noncitizen suspected of being in the US unlawfully.”

The Byrd rule also applies to a section that “limits the ability of federal courts to issue preliminary injunctions or temporary restraining orders against the federal government by requiring litigants to post a potentially enormous bond,” and another that “limits when the federal government can enter into or enforce settlement agreements that provide for payments to third parties to fully compensate victims, remedy harm, and punish and deter future violations,” Merkley’s office said.

The office of Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said yesterday that the provision requiring litigants to post bonds has been struck from the legislation. “This Senate Republican provision, which was even worse than the similar House-passed version, required a plaintiff seeking an emergency court order, preliminary injunction, or a temporary restraining order against the Trump Administration or the federal government to pay a costly bond up front—essentially making the justice system pay-to-play,” Schumer’s office said.

Schumer said that “if enacted, this would have been one of the most brazen power grabs we’ve seen in American history—an attempt to let a future President Trump ignore court orders with impunity, putting him above the law.”

Jon is a Senior IT Reporter for Ars Technica. He covers the telecom industry, Federal Communications Commission rulemakings, broadband consumer affairs, court cases, and government regulation of the tech industry.

Ted Cruz can’t get all Republicans to back his fight against state AI laws Read More »

Companies may soon pay a fee for their rockets to share the skies with airplanes

FAA, federal budget, Space, ted cruz / Beth Washington / June 15, 2025

Some space companies aren’t necessarily against this idea, but SpaceX hasn’t spoken.

Starship soars through the stratosphere. Credit: Stephen Clark/Ars Technica

The Federal Aviation Administration may soon levy fees on companies seeking launch and reentry licenses, a new tack in the push to give the agency the resources it needs to keep up with the rapidly growing commercial space industry.

The text of a budget reconciliation bill released by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) last week calls for the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, known as AST, to begin charging licensing fees to space companies next year. The fees would phase in over eight years, after which the FAA would adjust them to keep pace with inflation. The money would go into a trust fund to help pay for the operating costs of the FAA’s commercial space office.

The bill released by Cruz’s office last week covers federal agencies under the oversight of the Senate Commerce Committee, which he chairs. These agencies include the FAA and NASA. Ars recently covered Cruz’s proposals for NASA to keep the Space Launch System rocket, Orion spacecraft, and Gateway lunar space station alive, while the Trump administration aims to cancel Gateway and end the SLS and Orion programs after two crew missions to the Moon.

The Trump administration’s fiscal year 2026 budget request, released last month, proposes $42 million for the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, a fraction of the agency’s overall budget request of $22 billion. The FAA’s commercial space office received an almost identical funding level in 2024 and 2025. Accounting for inflation, this is effectively a budget cut for AST. The office’s budget increased from $27.6 million to more than $42 million between 2021 and 2024, when companies like SpaceX began complaining the FAA was not equipped to keep up with the fast-moving commercial launch industry.

The FAA licensed 11 commercial launch and reentry operations in 2015, when AST’s budget was $16.6 million. Last year, the number of space operations increased to 164, and the US industry is on track to conduct more than 200 commercial launches and reentries in 2025. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is doing most of these launches.

While the FAA’s commercial space office receives more federal funding today, the budget hasn’t grown to keep up with the cadence of commercial spaceflight. SpaceX officials urged the FAA to double its licensing staff in 2023 after the company experienced delays in securing launch licenses.

In the background, a Falcon 9 rocket climbs away from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. Another Falcon 9 stands on its launch pad at neighboring Kennedy Space Center awaiting its opportunity to fly.

Adding it up

Cruz’s section of the Senate reconciliation bill calls for the FAA to charge commercial space companies per pound of payload mass, beginning with 25 cents per pound in 2026 and increasing to $1.50 per pound in 2033. Subsequent fee rates would change based on inflation. The overall fee per launch or entry would be capped at $30,000 in 2026, increasing to $200,000 in 2033, and then adjusted to keep pace with inflation.

The Trump administration has not weighed in on Cruz’s proposed fee schedule, but Trump’s nominee for the next FAA administrator, Bryan Bedford, agreed with the need for launch and reentry licensing fees in a Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday. Most of the hearing’s question-and-answer session focused on the safety of commercial air travel, but there was a notable exchange on the topic of commercial spaceflight.

Cruz said the rising number of space launches will “add considerable strain to the airspace system” in the United States. Airlines and their passengers pay FAA-mandated fees for each flight segment, and private owners pay the FAA a fee to register their aircraft. The FAA also charges overflight fees to aircraft traveling through US airspace, even if they don’t take off or land in the United States.

“Nearly every user of the National Airspace System pays something back into the system to help cover their operational costs, yet under current law, space launch companies do not, and there is no mechanism for them to pay even if they wish to,” Cruz said. “As commercial spaceflight expands rapidly, so does its impact on the FAA’s ability to operate the National Airspace System. This proposal accounts for that.”

When asked if he agreed, Trump’s FAA nominee suggested he did. Bedford, president and CEO of Republic Airways, is poised to take the helm of the federal aviation regulator if he passes Senate confirmation.

Bryan Bedford is seen prior to his nomination hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee to lead the Federal Aviation Administration on June 11, 2025. Credit: Craig Hudson For The Washington Post via Getty Images

The FAA clears airspace of commercial and private air traffic along the flight corridors of rockets as they launch into space, and around the paths of spacecraft as they return to Earth. The agency is primarily charged with ensuring commercial rockets don’t endanger the public. The National Airspace System (NAS) consists of 29 million square miles of airspace over land and oceans. The FAA says more than 45,000 flights and 2.9 million airline passengers travel through the airspace every day.

Bedford said he didn’t want to speak on specific policy proposals before the Trump administration announces an official position on the matter.

“But I’ll confirm you’re exactly right,” Bedford told Cruz. “Passengers and airlines themselves pay significant taxes. … Those taxes are designed to modernize our NAS. One of the things that is absolutely critical in modernization is making sure we design the NAS so it can accommodate an increased cadence in space launch, so I certainly support where you’re going with that.”

SpaceX would be the company most affected by the proposed licensing fees. The majority of SpaceX’s missions launch the company’s own Starlink broadband satellites aboard Falcon 9 rockets. Most of those launches carry around 17 metric tons (about 37,500 pounds) of usable payload mass.

A quick calculation shows that SpaceX would pay a fee of roughly $9,400 for an average Starlink launch on a Falcon 9 rocket next year if Cruz’s legislation is signed into law. SpaceX launched 89 dedicated Starlink missions last year. That would add up to more than $800,000 in annual fees going into the FAA’s coffers under Cruz’s licensing scheme. Once you account for all of SpaceX’s other commercial launches, this number would likely exceed $1 million.

Assuming Falcon 9s continue to launch Starlink satellites in 2033, the fees would rise to approximately $56,000 per launch. SpaceX may have switched over all Starlink missions to its giant new Starship rocket by then, in which case the company will likely reach the FAA’s proposed fee cap of $200,000 per launch. SpaceX hopes to launch Starships at lower cost than it currently launches the Falcon 9 rocket, so this proposal would see SpaceX pay a significantly larger fraction of its per-mission costs in the form of FAA fees.

Industry reaction

A senior transportation official in the Biden administration voiced tentative support in 2023 for a fee scheme similar to the one under consideration by the Senate. Michael Huerta, a former FAA administrator during the Obama administration and the first Trump administration, told NPR last year that he supports the idea.

“You have this group of new users that are paying nothing into the system that are an increasing share of the operations,” Huerta said. “I truly believe the current structure isn’t sustainable.”

The Commercial Spaceflight Federation, an industry advocacy group that includes SpaceX and Blue Origin among its membership, signaled last year it was against the idea of creating launch and reentry fees, or taxes, as some industry officials call them. Commercial launch and reentry companies have been excluded from FAA fees to remove regulatory burdens and help the industry grow. The federation told NPR last year that because the commercial space industry requires access to US airspace much less often than the aviation industry, it would not yet be appropriate to have space companies pay into an FAA trust fund.

SpaceX did not respond to questions from Ars on the matter. United Launch Alliance would likely be on the hook to become the second-largest payer of FAA fees, at least over the next couple of years, with numerous missions in its backlog to launch massive stacks of Internet satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper network from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

A ULA spokesperson told Ars the company is still reviewing and assessing the Senate Commerce Committee’s proposal. “In general, we are supportive of fees that are affordable, do not disadvantage US companies against their foreign counterparts, are fair, equitable, and are used to directly improve the shared infrastructure at the Cape and other spaceports,” the spokesperson said.

Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the world’s space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet.

Companies may soon pay a fee for their rockets to share the skies with airplanes Read More »

Ted Cruz bill: States that regulate AI will be cut out of $42B broadband fund

AI, broadband, Policy, ted cruz / Mike M. / June 7, 2025

BEAD changes: No fiber preference, no low-cost mandate

The BEAD program is separately undergoing an overhaul because Republicans don’t like how it was administered by Democrats. The Biden administration spent about three years developing rules and procedures for BEAD and then evaluating plans submitted by each US state and territory, but the Trump administration has delayed grants while it rewrites the rules.

While Biden’s Commerce Department decided to prioritize the building of fiber networks, Republicans have pushed for a “tech-neutral approach” that would benefit cable companies, fixed wireless providers, and Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite service.

Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick previewed changes in March, and today he announced more details of the overhaul that will eliminate the fiber preference and various requirements imposed on states. One notable but unsurprising change is that the Trump administration won’t let states require grant recipients to offer low-cost Internet plans at specific rates to people with low incomes.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) “will refuse to accept any low-cost service option proposed in a [state or territory’s] Final Proposal that attempts to impose a specific rate level (i.e., dollar amount),” the Trump administration said. Instead, ISPs receiving subsidies will be able to continue offering “their existing, market driven low-cost plans to meet the statutory low-cost requirement.”

The Benton Institute for Broadband & Society criticized the overhaul, saying that the Trump administration is investing in the cheapest broadband infrastructure instead of the best. “Fiber-based broadband networks will last longer, provide better, more reliable service, and scale to meet communities’ ever-growing connectivity needs,” the advocacy group said. “NTIA’s new guidance is shortsighted and will undermine economic development in rural America for decades to come.”

The Trump administration’s overhaul drew praise from cable lobby group NCTA-The Internet & Television Association, whose members will find it easier to obtain subsidies. “We welcome changes to the BEAD program that will make the program more efficient and eliminate onerous requirements, which add unnecessary costs that impede broadband deployment efforts,” NCTA said. “These updates are welcome improvements that will make it easier for providers to build faster, especially in hard-to-reach communities, without being bogged down by red tape.”

Ted Cruz bill: States that regulate AI will be cut out of $42B broadband fund Read More »

Senator Ted Cruz is trying to block Wi-Fi hotspots for schoolchildren

Policy, ted cruz, wi-fi hotspots / Beth Washington / January 28, 2025

Ted Cruz vs. Wi-Fi hotspots

Cruz: Hotspot lending could “censor kids’ exposure to conservative viewpoints.”

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-Texas) at a hearing on Tuesday, January 28, 2025. Credit: Getty Images | Tom Williams

US Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is trying to block a plan to distribute Wi-Fi hotspots to schoolchildren, claiming it will lead to unsupervised Internet usage, endanger kids, and possibly restrict kids’ exposure to conservative viewpoints. “The government shouldn’t be complicit in harming students or impeding parents’ ability to decide what their kids see by subsidizing unsupervised access to inappropriate content,” Cruz said.

Cruz, chairman of the Commerce Committee, yesterday announced a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution that would nullify the hotspot rule issued by the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC voted to adopt the rule in July 2024 under then-Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, saying it was needed to help kids without reliable Internet access complete their homework.

Cruz’s press release said the FCC action “violates federal law, creates major risks for kids’ online safety, [and] harms parental rights.” While Rosenworcel said last year that the hotspot lending could be implemented under the Universal Service Fund’s existing budget, Cruz alleged that it “will increase taxes on working families.”

“As adopted, the Biden administration’s Wi-Fi Hotspot Order unlawfully expanded the Universal Service Fund (USF) to subsidize Wi-Fi hotspots for off-campus use by schoolchildren, despite the Communications Act clearly limiting the Commission’s USF authority to ‘classrooms,'” Cruz’s announcement said. “This partisan order, strongly opposed by then-Commissioner Brendan Carr and Commissioner Nathan Simington, represents an overreach of the FCC’s mandate and poses serious risk to children’s online safety and parental rights.”

Cruz’s press release said that “unlike in a classroom or study hall, off-premises hotspot use is not typically supervised, inviting exposure to inappropriate content, including social media.” Cruz’s office alleged that the FCC program shifts control of Internet access from parents to schools and thus “heightens the risk of censoring kids’ exposure to conservative viewpoints.”

The Cruz resolution to nullify the FCC rule was co-sponsored by Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Todd Young (R-Ind.), Ted Budd (R-N.C.), Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), John Curtis (R-Utah), Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.).

The FCC’s plan

Under the CRA, Congress can reverse recent agency actions. The exact deadline isn’t always clear, but the Congressional Research Service estimated “that Biden Administration rules submitted to the House or Senate on or after August 1, 2024” are likely to be subject to the CRA during the first few months of 2025. The FCC hotspot rule was submitted to Congress in August.

The FCC rule expands E-Rate, a Universal Service Fund program that helps schools and libraries obtain affordable broadband. The hotspot order would let schools and libraries use E-Rate funding for “lending programs to loan Wi-Fi hotspots and services that can be used off-premises to the students, school staff, and library patrons with the greatest need,” the FCC says.

The FCC’s hotspot order said “technology has become an integral part of the modern classroom,” and that “neither Congress nor the Commission has defined the term ‘classroom’ or placed any explicit location restrictions on schools or libraries.”

“We conclude that funding Wi-Fi hotspots and services for off-premises use will help enhance access for school classrooms and libraries to the broadband connectivity necessary to facilitate digital learning for students and school staff, as well as library services for library patrons who lack broadband access when they are away from school or library premises,” the FCC order said.

Off-premises use can help “the student who has no way of accessing their homework to prepare for the next day’s classroom lesson, or the school staff member who is unable to engage in parent-teacher meetings or professional trainings that take place after the school day ends, or the library patron who needs to attend a virtual job interview or perform bona fide research after their library’s operating hours,” the FCC said.

The FCC order continued:

Thus, we conclude that by permitting support for the purchase of Wi-Fi hotspots and Internet wireless services that can be used off-premises and by allowing schools and libraries to use this technology to connect the individuals with the greatest need to the resources required to fully participate in classroom assignments and in accessing library services, we will thereby extend the digital reach of schools and libraries for educational purposes and allow schools, teachers, and libraries to adopt and use technology-based tools and supports that require Internet access at home. For these reasons, we conclude that the action adopted today is within the scope of our statutory directive under section 254(h)(2)(A) of the Communications Act to enhance access to advanced telecommunications and information services for school classrooms and libraries.

The FCC order said it would be up to schools and libraries “to make determinations about acceptable use in their communities.” Schools and libraries seeking funding would be “subject to the requirements under the Children’s Internet Protection Act, which requires local educational agencies and libraries to establish specific technical protections before allowing network access,” the FCC said. They also must certify on an FCC form that they have updated and publicly posted acceptable use policies and may be required to provide the policies and evidence of where they are posted to the FCC.

Hotspots were distributed during pandemic

The FCC previously distributed Wi-Fi hotspots and other Internet access technology through the $7.171 billion Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF), which was authorized by Congress in the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. But Congress rescinded the program’s remaining funding of $1.768 billion last year.

The Rosenworcel FCC responded by adapting E-Rate to include hotspot lending. Overall E-Rate funding is based on demand and capped at $4.94 billion per year. Actual spending for E-Rate in 2023 was $2.48 billion. E-Rate and other Universal Service Fund programs are paid for through fees imposed on phone companies, which generally pass that cost on to consumers with a “Universal Service” charge on telephone bills.

Carr, who is now FCC chairman, said in his July 2024 dissent that only Congress can decide whether to revive the hotspot lending. “Now that the ECF program has expired, its future is up to Congress,” he said. “The legislative branch retains the power to decide whether to continue funding this Wi-Fi loaner program—or not. But Congress has made clear that the FCC’s authority to fund this initiative is over.”

With the previous temporary program, Congress ensured that Universal Service Fund money wouldn’t be spent on the Wi-Fi hotspots and that “the program would sunset when the COVID-19 emergency ended,” Carr said. But the replacement program doesn’t have the “guardrails” imposed by Congress, he argued.

“The FCC includes no limit on the amount of ratepayer dollars that can be expended in aggregate over the course of years, no limit on the locations at which the hotpots can be used, no sunset date on the program, and no protection against this program increasing consumers’ monthly bills,” Carr said.

Even if Congress doesn’t act on Cruz’s resolution, Carr could start a new FCC proceeding to reverse the previous decision. Carr has said he plans to take actions “to reverse the last administration’s costly regulatory overreach.”

Ex-chair said plan didn’t require budget increase

Rosenworcel said the temporary program “demonstrated what a modern library and school can do to help a community learn without limits and keep connected.”

“Today we have a choice,” she said at the time. “We can go back to those days when people sat in parking lots to get a signal to get online and students struggling with the homework gap hung around fast food places just to get the Internet access they needed to do their schoolwork. Or we can go forward and build a digital future that works for everyone.”

She argued that the FCC has authority because the law “directs the agency to update the definition of universal service, which includes E-Rate, so that it evolves over time,” and “Congress specifically directed the Commission to designate additional services in this program as needed for schools and libraries.”

Cruz’s press release said the FCC “order imposes no overall limit on the amount of federal dollars that can be expended on the hotspots, lacks mean-testing to target children who may not have Internet at home, and allows for duplication of service in areas where the federal government is already subsidizing broadband. As a result, the order could strain the USF while increasing the risk of waste, fraud, and abuse.”

However, Rosenworcel said the program would work “within the existing E-Rate budget” and thus “does not require new universal service funds nor does it come at the cost of the support E-Rate provides to connectivity in schools and libraries.” Addressing the budget, the FCC order pointed out that E-Rate demand has fallen short of the program’s funding cap for many years.

While there wouldn’t be mandatory mean-testing, the FCC program would rely on schools and libraries to determine who should be given access to hotspots. “In establishing a budgeted approach to the lending program mechanism, we expect that the limited number of available Wi-Fi hotspots will more naturally be targeted to students, school staff, or library patrons with the most need,” the FCC order said.

Senator Ted Cruz is trying to block Wi-Fi hotspots for schoolchildren Read More »

Ted Cruz wants to overhaul $42B broadband program, nix low-cost requirement

access, and Deployment program, Broadband Equity, Policy, ted cruz / Shannon Garcia / November 22, 2024

Emboldened by Donald Trump’s election win, Republicans are seeking big changes to a $42.45 billion broadband deployment program. Their plan could delay distribution of government funding and remove or relax a requirement that ISPs accepting subsidies must offer low-cost Internet plans.

US Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) today issued a press release titled, “Sen. Cruz Warns Biden-Harris NTIA: Big Changes Ahead for Multi-Billion-Dollar Broadband Boondoggle.” Cruz, who will soon be chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, is angry about how the National Telecommunications and Information Administration has implemented the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program that was created by Congress in November 2021.

The NTIA announced this week that it has approved the funding plans submitted by all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and five US territories, which are slated to receive federal money and dole it out to broadband providers for network expansions. Texas was the last state to gain approval in what the NTIA called “a major milestone on the road to connecting everyone in America to affordable, reliable high-speed Internet service.”

Republicans including Cruz and incoming Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr have criticized the NTIA for not distributing the money faster. But Cruz’s promise of a revamp creates uncertainty about the distribution of funds. Cruz sent a letter yesterday to NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson in which he asked the agency to halt the program rollout until Trump takes over. Cruz also accused the NTIA of “technology bias” because the agency decided that fiber networks should be prioritized over other types of technology.

Cruz: Stop what you’re doing

“It is incumbent on you to bear these upcoming changes in mind during this transition term,” Cruz wrote. “I therefore urge the NTIA to pause unlawful, extraneous BEAD activities and avoid locking states into in [sic] any final actions until you provide a detailed, transparent response to my original inquiry and take immediate, measurable steps to address these issues.”

Ted Cruz wants to overhaul $42B broadband program, nix low-cost requirement Read More »

Ted Cruz wants to stop the FCC from updating data-breach notification rules

data breach, federal communications commission, Policy, ted cruz / Shannon Garcia / December 12, 2023

Sen. Ted Cruz speaks at a Senate committee hearing while holding up three fingers. — Enlarge / Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday, November 30, 2023.

Getty Images | Bill Clark

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and other Republican senators are fighting a Federal Communications Commission plan to impose new data-breach notification requirements on telecom providers. In a letter sent to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel today, the senators claim the pending FCC action would violate a congressional order.

The letter was sent by Cruz, Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), and Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.). They say the proposed data-breach notification rules are preempted by an action Congress took in 2017 to kill an assortment of privacy and security rules issued by the FCC.

The Congressional Review Act (CRA) was used in 2017 by Congress and then-President Donald Trump to throw out rules that would have required home Internet and mobile broadband providers to get consumers’ opt-in consent before using, sharing, or selling Web browsing history, app usage history, and other private information.

The invalidated FCC rules also included data-breach notification requirements that are similar to those the current FCC now plans to impose. The FCC already enforces data-breach notification requirements, but the pending proposal would expand the scope of those rules.

Rosenworcel’s data-breach proposal is scheduled for a vote at tomorrow’s commission meeting, and it may ultimately be up to the courts to decide whether it violates the 2017 congressional resolution. The Republican senators urged the FCC to rescind the draft plan and remove it from the meeting agenda.

Cruz also protested a recent FCC vote to enforce rules that prohibit discrimination in access to broadband services, calling it “government-mandated affirmative action and race-based pricing.”

Republicans: FCC plan “clearly unlawful”

When an agency-issued rule is nullified by a Congressional Review Act resolution, that rule “may not be reissued in substantially the same form” without authorization from Congress. The key legal question seems to be whether the FCC can re-implement one portion of the nullified rules as long as it doesn’t bring back the entire privacy order.

Cruz and fellow Republicans say that Rosenworcel’s plan would “resurrect a portion of the 2016 Broadband Privacy Order pertaining to data security.”

“This is clearly unlawful: the FCC’s proposed rules in the Report and Order are clearly ‘substantially similar’ to the nullified 2016 rules,” they wrote. “Specifically, the requirements in the Report and Order governing notification to the FCC, law enforcement, and consumers, as well as the recordkeeping requirements with respect to breaches and notifications, are substantially similar to the notification and recordkeeping requirements disapproved by Congress.”

The FCC proposal anticipates this argument but says the agency believes it can re-implement part of the Obama-era privacy order:

We conclude that it would be erroneous to construe the resolution of disapproval as applying to anything other than all of the rule revisions, as a whole, adopted as part of the 2016 Privacy Order. That resolution had the effect of nullifying each and every provision of the 2016 Privacy Order—each part being, under the APA [Administrative Procedure Act], “a rule”—but not “the rule” specified in the resolution of disapproval. By its terms, the CRA does not prohibit the adoption of a rule that is merely substantially similar to a limited portion of the disapproved rule or one that is the same as individual pieces of the disapproved rule.

Thus, according to the FCC proposal, the resolution “does not prohibit the Commission from revising its breach notification rules in ways that are similar to, or even the same as, some of the revisions that were adopted in the 2016 Privacy Order, unless the revisions adopted are the same, in substance, as the 2016 Privacy Order as a whole.”

Ted Cruz wants to stop the FCC from updating data-breach notification rules Read More »