Statement of REC Networks: Recent government actions

The recent events of intimidating Federal employees and the threat to the independence of Federal agencies are both concerning from a nonpartisan standpoint.

At REC, one of our main objectives is to be nonpartisan and to look at issues from both a liberal and a conservative perspective. This is why there have not been any very strong opinions coming out of our shop where it came to some of the various things that have taken place since the transition of the FCC to the Brendan Carr administration.

For example, in the letter sent by Chairman Carr to PBS and NPR, we realized the concerns that those on the left had regarding the “weaponizing” of the FCC and the sights of a larger goal of using any actions taken against PBS and NPR member stations as a catalyst to further advance a Republican agenda to defund the Corporation of Public Broadcasting. At the same time, we saw merit in the Republican claims that programming that was distributed through PBS and NPR, as well as on other programming produced by member stations, did indeed, include underwriting acknowledgements that had crossed the line into advertisements. While REC did not take a specific position, we did provide an Advisory Letter to remind stations to do what they should have been doing all along, assuring that their underwriting copy complied with the long-standing Commission policy on the nature of noncommercial educational broadcasting.

In the cases regarding the complaints and objections filed by the Center of American Rights against NBC, CBS and ABC as well as the objection filed against Fox by the Media and Democracy Project; we again, saw this from both angles. We understood the concerns that the agency was being weaponized to control the media and to punish those networks that the current President viewed as a “threat”. At the same time, we also looked at regulations, policy and the Communications Act.

The original NBC issue was clearly about the Equal Opportunities rules regarding the appearance of candidates for public office. REC is satisfied that this issue had been resolved as both Presidential candidates did receive equal time, albeit in different time slots. REC is obviously concerned that the NBC issue has been revived under Carr. Our concerns regarding NBC have been recently escalated as a result of Chairman Carr’s letter to Comcast regarding the presence of content on the company’s corporate website outlining their efforts to support Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) within their corporation and in the community, which we consider a private business decision and not directly within the purview of the FCC.

The CBS and ABC situations do raise possible remote questions of news distortion, but it is not our place to state whether it really is or not. We must allow the agency and the courts to work that out. The Fox issue was properly dismissed and kept that way, because the complaint did not allege any specific case of news distortion over broadcast television, only over cable. They only stated it was on Fox News Channel, which is not in the Commission’s purview for such issues.

Again, we look beyond politics and actually analyze the situations and apply common sense knowledge of the laws, regulations and policies.

REC’s advocacy is very much focused on freedom of speech and expression and other aspects of the Constitution, as well as the right for every American to have an equal opportunity to use our shared spectrum resource. This is a standard that we place at a much higher level than partisan politics on either side of the aisle. REC also offers our ongoing support to the career federal employees at the FCC and other agencies, who come from both sides of the aisle in their personal lives.

With that said, two recent incidents have taken place over the past few days have prompted REC to finally speak up and directly address the issues at the FCC and the Federal Government in general, directly head on.

First, REC has a very high respect for career federal employees, including those in the FCC at levels below that of Bureau Chief, as they were not necessarily directly appointed by the current Chairman, unlike the Bureau Chiefs and Directors. These employees, especially those in the Media Bureau, who we interact with, are good career employees, whose tenures span multiple administrations. These are the people who keep the expertise of the agency and their specific Bureaus and Divisions at top notch. REC opposes the ongoing harassment and intimidation being made to “feds” in all agencies by Elon Musk and his so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE). The mass email sent this past weekend to reply back to human resources at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) regarding their past week’s accomplishments, oversteps the chain of command within these agencies. We trust the agencies to best supervise their employees and we believe that these agencies have the proper performance metrics needed to properly achieve the mission. The DOGE email oversteps many boundaries and as it turns out, it appears that the email was nothing more than just a social experiment to see how many feds would reply. We support those federal agencies who are telling their employees not to participate in Musk’s little manipulation game.

Second, the recent attempt by the Trump administration to illegally (e.g. without changed legislation) upend independent federal agencies, such as the FCC and requiring that the White House have an implied “final say” on all new regulations and policies. Not only does this violate federal law in respect to the FCC’s authority to enact regulations, pursuant to the Communications Act of 1934, as amended (47 USC §154(i)), but it may also have constitutional implications (we are not constitutional scholars, so we will leave that part to the experts). While we do feel that it is appropriate for independent agencies, such as the FCC to brief the White House on various issues, it is very inappropriate for the White House to be a gate keeper on expert independent organizations, such as the FCC. The FCC must maintain their authority to independently develop federal regulations, based on their expertise under the power delegated to them by Congress as well as to implement regulations that are needed based on enacted legislation approved by the Legislative Branch and signed into law by the Executive Branch.

Again, these two issues go beyond partisan politics and may have the potential to reach the point of threatening democracy in our nation, which should concern all sides.

As such, REC recognizes and supports the welfare and rights of our career federal employees, both inside and outside of the FCC and we support the existing system of checks and balances while respecting the independence of certain federal agencies, such as the FCC. They are independent for a reason and have been that way since 1934, and that reason has never changed.