Enlarge / Federal Communications Commission hearing room on February 26, 2015, in Washington, DC. (credit: Getty Images | Mark Wilson)

Democrats are one step closer to having a majority on the Federal Communications Commission for the first time in Joe Biden's presidency.

Biden nominee Anna Gomez was approved by the Senate Commerce Committee today, advancing her nomination to the Senate floor. A vote of the full Senate on Gomez's nomination has not been scheduled yet.

Democrats hold a 14-13 majority on the Senate Commerce Committee. Gomez's nomination was passed without a full roll call, but nine Republicans, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), asked to be recorded as a "no" on Gomez's nomination.

Enlarge / US President Joe Biden exits the White House before boarding Marine One on Thursday, July 6, 2023. (credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg)

The Biden administration is appealing a federal judge's ruling that ordered the government to halt a wide range of communications with social media companies. President Biden and the other federal defendants in the case "hereby appeal" the ruling to the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, according to a notice filed in US District Court yesterday. The US will submit a longer filing with arguments to the 5th Circuit appeals court.

On Tuesday, Judge Terry Doughty of US District Court for the Western District of Louisiana granted a preliminary injunction that prohibits White House officials and numerous federal agencies from communicating "with social-media companies for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech posted on social-media platforms."

Doughty found that defendants "significantly encouraged" and in some cases coerced "the social-media companies to such extent that the decision [to modify or suppress content] should be deemed to be the decisions of the Government." The Biden administration has argued that its communications with tech companies are permissible under the First Amendment and vital to counter misinformation about elections, COVID-19, and vaccines.

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The Biden administration today announced how much broadband-deployment funding each US state and territory will be eligible to receive from a $42.45 billion grant program.

The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program was approved by Congress in November 2021 and will pay Internet service providers to expand networks in unserved and underserved areas. The BEAD money is being distributed to states by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).

Texas leads the way with $3.31 billion in today's allocations, followed by California with $1.86 billion. Nineteen states will get at least $1 billion.

Enlarge / President Joe Biden speaks on the South Lawn of the White House on June 15, 2023, in Washington, DC. (credit: Getty Images | Alex Wong )

President Joe Biden this week criticized cable-TV companies for imposing "junk fees," as the Federal Communications Commission proposed new rules cracking down on the hidden fees charged by cable and satellite video providers.

"My administration's top priority is lowering the cost of living for the middle class, and that includes cracking down on companies' use of junk fees to hide true costs from families, who end up paying more as a result," Biden said in a statement on Tuesday.

As Biden noted, the FCC "proposed a new rule that would require cable and satellite TV providers to give consumers the all-in price for the service they're offering up front." The proposed rule would force companies like Comcast, Charter Spectrum, and DirecTV to publish more accurate prices.

Enlarge / US President Joe Biden on March 13, 2023, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. (credit: Getty Images | Saul Loeb)

President Biden today announced his new choice to fill the empty seat on the Federal Communications Commission, which has been deadlocked with two Democrats and two Republicans for his entire presidency.

Biden nominated Democrat Anna Gomez, who has worked in both government and the telecom industry. Gomez has been at the US State Department since January 2023 as senior adviser for International Information and Communications Policy and was a deputy assistant secretary at the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) from 2009 to 2023.

A lawyer, Gomez was also vice president of government affairs at Sprint Nextel from 2006 to 2009. Before working for Sprint, she spent about 12 years in several roles at the FCC, including deputy chief of the International Bureau and senior legal adviser to then-Chairman William Kennard.

Enlarge / CDC Director Rochelle Walensky testifying before Congress. (credit: Drew Angerer )

On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky announced that she'd be stepping down from her position at the end of June. The announcement came the same day that the World Health Organization announced that COVID no longer constituted an emergency , and Walensky's resignation letter made reference to that: “The end of the COVID-19 public health emergency marks a tremendous transition for our country, for public health, and in my tenure as CDC Director.”

Walensky took on the directorship of the CDC at a very challenging time. The agency was dealing with a number of self-inflicted wounds, such as the failure of its initial tests for SARS-CoV-2 and confused advice on the value of masks. Layered on top of that was a degree of political interference from a White House that wanted to minimize the risk and damage of the pandemic. This included the sidelining of CDC experts who gave realistically grim warnings at the start of the pandemic and the editing of public health guidance by White House political appointees. By the start of the Biden administration, the once-flagship public health organization had lost a lot of its credibility and suffered from severe morale problems.

Walensky took on the task of restoring trust and reforming the agency, starting a restructuring program meant to get CDC to focus on getting the data needed to craft public health advice rather than generate academic publications. Better communication to the public was also a major goal of the reforms.

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The Biden administration on Thursday pushed for new mandatory regulations and liabilities to be imposed on software makers and service providers in an attempt to shift the burden of defending US cyberspace away from small organizations and individuals.

"The most capable and best-positioned actors in cyberspace must be better stewards of the digital ecosystem,” administration officials wrote in a highly anticipated documenting an updated National Cybersecurity Strategy . “Today, end users bear too great a burden for mitigating cyber risks. Individuals, small businesses, state and local governments, and infrastructure operators have limited resources and competing priorities, yet these actors’ choices can have a significant impact on our national cybersecurity."

Increasing regulations and liabilities

The 39-page document cited recent ransomware attacks that have disrupted hospitals, schools, government services, pipeline operations, and other critical infrastructure and essential services. One of the most visible such attacks occurred in 2021 with a ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline , which delivers gasoline and jet fuel to much of the southeastern US. The attack shut down the vast pipeline for several days, prompting fuel shortages in some states.

Enlarge / US President Joe Biden speaks to members of the media on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, Jan. 30, 2023. (credit: Getty | Chris Kleponis/Bloomberg )

President Joe Biden plans to end two national emergency declarations over the COVID-19 pandemic on May 11, which will trigger a restructuring of the federal response to the deadly coronavirus and will end most federal support for COVID-19 vaccinations, testing, and hospital care.

The plan was revealed in a statement to Congress opposing House Republicans' efforts to end the emergency declarations immediately.

“An abrupt end to the emergency declarations would create wide-ranging chaos and uncertainty throughout the health care system—for states, for hospitals and doctors’ offices, and, most importantly, for tens of millions of Americans,” the Office of Management and Budget wrote in a Statement of Administration Policy.

Enlarge / Gigi Sohn answering questions on December 1, 2021, at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on her nomination to the Federal Communications Commission. (credit: Senate Commerce Committee )

President Joe Biden yesterday renominated Gigi Sohn to the long-empty fifth spot on the Federal Communications Commission in hopes that the Senate will finally give Democrats a 3-2 FCC majority.

The FCC has been deadlocked with two Democrats and two Republicans for Biden's entire presidency so far. He first nominated Sohn, a longtime consumer advocate and former FCC official, on October 26, 2021 .

The full Senate never voted on whether to confirm Sohn as an FCC commissioner. Republicans vocally opposed her, and Democratic leaders seemingly weren't able to line up support from more conservative party members such as Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).