FCC Travel Freeze Forces Gomez to Pay Her Own Way to NAB Show

WASHINGTON, April 8, 2025 – The Federal Communications Commission has implemented a freeze on agency-funded travel, prompting one commissioner to self-fund a trip to a major industry conference and another to cancel plans altogether.

“We’ve been told there is a freeze on FCC-funded travel,” a spokesperson for Commissioner Anna Gomez (D) told Broadband Breakfast. “However, Commissioner Gomez thought it’d be important to attend [the 2025 National Associations of Broadcasters Show in Las Vegas] and discuss current media issues, so for this instance she’ll be self-funding her trip.”

The travel restriction appears to have gone into effect just days before the start of the 2025 NAB Show (April 5-9), causing one of the nation’s largest media and broadcasting gatherings to feature the smallest FCC presence in recent memory.

On Thursday, April 3, it was widely announced that Commissioners Gomez and Nathan Simington (R) would appear in separate sessions. By Sunday, when the show opened at the Las Vegas Convention Center, Simington had canceled his keynote address, while Gomez went ahead with her appearance — at personal expense.

When asked why Gomez’s travel request was denied, her office referred questions to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr. While Carr’s office has not responded directly to inquiries, FCC officials said the chairman ultimately denied permission based on a White House directive restricting non-essential agency travel.

The directive stems from a February executive order signed by President Donald Trump as part of his “Cost Efficiency Initiative” under the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk. The order directed agency heads to prohibit federally funded travel for conferences or other non-essential purposes unless a brief, written justification was submitted and approved within a centralized system.

The freeze comes at a time of rising political tension at the FCC, where sharp disagreements over diversity initiatives, media regulation, and the interpretation of recent executive orders have split commissioners along ideological lines.

During her Monday remarks at NAB, Gomez didn’t shy away from the controversy. She described the regulatory atmosphere in Washington as “very stressful” under President Trump, and accused Carr of misapplying the president’s executive orders targeting federal DEI programs to justify investigations into private corporations. She claimed the FCC’s recent scrutiny of companies like CBS, Comcast, and Disney amounted to state-sanctioned “harassment.”

The freeze could be a soft mechanism to mute dissenting voices or discourage public airing of internal disagreements, although it could also be tied to internal budget considerations or other factors.

Gomez has been an outspoken critic of Carr. Her presence at NAB followed recent moves by the Trump administration to reshape other independent agencies, including the abrupt removal of two Democratic commissioners from the Federal Trade Commission last month — a decision widely viewed as an effort to consolidate ideological control at the FTC. The FTC commissioners have sued Trump to get their jobs back.

“I’m not worried about myself,” Gomez told the NAB audience. “But I will not stop speaking out because I have to,” she said. “I cannot allow this to continue without raising alarm bells.”