Carr: FCC Ready if Shutdown Hits This Week

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29, 2025 – The Federal Communications Commission has a “playbook” ready if the government shuts down this Wednesday, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said Monday.

“We have been hard at work the last couple of weeks preparing for a possible government shutdown,” Carr said, speaking to attendees at the 2025 SCTE TechExpo.  “Hopefully we don't get there, but we do have a game plan in place.”

Carr said the FCC’s chief of staff has been coordinating with other federal offices on contingency planning and that the FCC was still crunching numbers to determine exactly how long it could operate if Congress fails to appropriate new funding.

Carr emphasized that the FCC’s focus this week was on Tuesday’s open meeting, where commissioners will vote on a slate of broadband measures he described as part of the agency’s “Build America” agenda.

“We're going to be voting on a series of permitting reform proposals, both to make wireless infrastructure easier to build out, but also wireline,” Carr detailed. He pointed to the use of “shot clocks” and “reasonable limits on fees” to reduce delays and uncertainty in broadband permitting.

One item on Tuesday’s agenda proposes to vote on a notice of inquiry about state and local regulatory fees, including fees charged to attachers on publicly-owned poles.

While the FCC can’t regulate publicly-owned poles in the same way that it regulates the poles of investor-owned utilities, it proposed to vote on a measure under its general ability to stop local regulations or fees that inhibit broadband deployment.

In the realm of investor-owned utilities, some broadband providers want to put a ceiling on make-ready costs, which utilities charge broadband providers for moving wires, equipment or other attachments to make room for new connections on utility poles, could limit utilities’ ability to issue final invoices that dramatically exceed their initial estimates. Investor-owned utilities across several coalitions have opposed putting any cost ceiling on them, arguing that field conditions often change and that the FCC should not bar them from recovering legitimate expenses.

Carr described the unusually heavy docket of the upcoming Sept. 30 meeting, which includes seven items, compared with the FCC’s typical three or four. Carr said the FCC’s meeting agenda for October, yet to be announced, would be similarly “packed”.

He said this was evidence of a more aggressive pace being taken under President Donald Trump’s second term.

“At the FCC in particular, we're running a pretty aggressive agenda. It's really unprecedented in nature of speed right now,” he said. “Everyone is just hitting the ground running. We’re focused on putting wins on the board.”

The SCTE TechExpo is organized by the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers, a subsidiary of CableLabs.

Correction: A previous version of this story said the FCC was considering an item at its September meeting related to pole attachment make-ready costs. In fact, the agency voted on a notice of inquiry that asked about fees charged to attachers on publicly-owned poles, which is part of a broader inquiry about state and local regulations ISPs say hold up broadband deployment.