FCC Chairman Faces Scrutiny Ahead of Wednesday Senate Oversight Hearing
Groups call on senators to probe Brendan Carr’s use of public interest and news distortion policies
WASHINGTON, Dec. 15, 2025 – Ahead of a Senate oversight hearing of the Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday, senators are being urged to scrutinize FCC policies that Chairman Brendan Carr has used to influence news coverage.
Drew Clark
In a release Monday, Protect Democracy, a nonprofit dedicated to defeating authoritarian threats, urged senators to press Carr on whether he will commit to bringing a pending petition to repeal the FCC’s news distortion policy to a vote.
“In November, a bipartisan coalition of seven former FCC chairs and commissioners filed a formal petition calling on the FCC to rescind its news distortion policy,” the release states. “The Senate oversight committee should demand that Carr uphold this commitment and bring the petition to a vote.”
Relatedly, the Free State Foundation, a think tank focused on free markets and limited government, called on the Senate committee to consider replacing the public interest standard ahead of the oversight hearing.
A central principle of the 1934 Communications Act, the public interest standard requires broadcast licensees to operate in the “public interest, convenience, and necessity.”
Over time, this broad authority led to the creation of the news distortion policy in 1949. That policy gives the FCC the power to investigate and potentially punish broadcasters for allegedly “distorting” the news when certain criteria are met.
“Commerce Committee senators... should use the oversight hearing, at least in part, to begin a serious discussion about replacing the FCC's public interest standard, upon which the agency's program content regulation, including its news distortion rule, is grounded,” said FSF President Randolph May in a blog Monday.
'The public interest standard is standardless'
“The public interest standard is standardless,” May wrote. “This means it is inconsistent with the rule of law and invites abuse. The Senate Commerce Committee should begin to consider replacing it with some form of consumer welfare standard fit for the Digital Age.”
Protect Democracy also outlined questions they say senators should raise, including whether Carr would support bipartisan congressional efforts to eliminate the news distortion rule, and whether the FCC has opened or reopened investigations into broadcasters based on disagreements with news coverage.
Lawmakers should also probe the limits of the FCC’s authority to police allegedly “unbalanced” content, they said, and whether Carr’s actions mirror those of authoritarian media regulators abroad.
The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation convened Wednesday’s hearing following a series of actions by Carr that raised concerns about press independence and government interference in media.
Since his designation as chairman in January, Carr has publicly threatened broadcasters numerous times. He has called on ABC and NBC to remove late-night show hosts Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Meyers, investigated NPR and PBS over allegations that their advertisements violated federal law, and accused CBS News of news distortion following a 60 Minutes interview with then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
“The public interest standard, malleable and ambiguous as it is, has been a ready means for expanding the FCC's authority in the hands of those commissioners who wish to use it for that purpose,” May wrote.
“For those who wish to use it in this way, it has been the means by which the agency has restricted speech, or preferred some speech over other speech, by regulating program content or threatening to do so. All under the claim of furthering the ‘public interest’,” May wrote.
'How about no'
For his part, Carr has so-far resisted calls to rescind the FCC’s news distortion policy, tweeting, “How about no,” in response to the petition from former FCC leaders, in a post to X on Nov. 13.
“On my watch, the FCC will continue to hold broadcasters accountable to their public interest obligations,” Carr said.
FCC commissioners Anna Gomez and Olivia Trusty will also testify on Wednesday. It will be the first time in more than five years that all FCC commissioners have appeared together before the Senate Commerce committee.
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