The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), established by Congress in 1934 as an independent agency to regulate a wide swath of communications, is not an independent agency, according to its Trump-appointed chairman, during a raucous debate on Capitol Hill.
The FCC has jurisdiction over radio, broadcast television, satellite, and cable communications, and oversees licensing of broadcasters, with some authority to revoke licenses for regulatory or technical violations.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly called for the licenses of outlets he has criticized to be revoked.
In a heated debate, U.S. Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) challenged FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, a Project 2025 author, over the agency’s independence.
“Yes or no, please, yes or no?” Senator Luján asked Carr during a Commerce Committee oversight hearing on Wednesday. “Is the FCC an independent agency?”
When Carr immediately declared, “I think that…” Luján pulled him back.
“Yes or no, is all we need, sir. Yes or no, is it independent?” the New Mexico Democrat asked again.
“Well, there’s a test for this in the law, in the key portion of that test,” Carr replied.
“Yes or no, Brendan,” Luján again asked.
“So just so you know, Brendan,” the senator continued, “on your website, it just simply says, man, the FCC’s independent. This isn’t a trick question.”
“Okay, the FCC is not…” Carr began.
“Yes or no?”
After more back and forth, Carr ultimately declared, “the FCC is not an independent agency.”
The Bulwark reported that in 2021 Carr declared that the FCC is an independent agency.
The Bulwark’s Sam Stein reported early Wednesday afternoon, “FCC folks have been frantically scrubbing their website to remove reference to it being an ‘independent’ agency now that Carr this morning said it’s not.”
An archived version of the FCC’s website reads: “An independent U.S. government agency overseen by Congress, the Commission is the federal agency responsible for implementing and enforcing America’s communications law and regulations.”
That page now calls it a “U.S. government agency overseen by Congress.”
Axios’ media correspondent Sara Fischer on social media declared, “This is INSANE. I took this screenshot of the @FCC website at 11:52 a.m. ET where it explicitly states the FCC is an independent agency. 25 minutes later, it has been removed following Carr’s comments during this hearing!”
“This, combined with SCOTUS appearing poised to uphold POTUS firing of FTC commissioners,” Fischer added, “shows how effective Trump has been in diminishing the independence of federal agencies that are supposed to regulate the media/ad/tech industries.”