GOP Lawmakers, AGs Want FCC Data Breach Case Reheard
The fear the precedent would make it harder for Congress to eliminate agency rules it doesn’t like
WASHINGTON, July 17, 2026 – More than 20 Republican lawmakers want federal judges to overturn a 2025 case that upheld expanded telecom data breach rules.
They said the 2025 decision would make it easier for agencies to reissue rules similar to those Congress struck down with the Congressional Review Act. Like the telecom industry groups also trying to reverse the decision, they fear the CRA would become a less effective means of quashing regulations they don’t like.
The law prevents nullified rules from being issued again in the future, but the Sixth Circuit ruled the Federal Communications Commission order at issue could stand because it was only a smaller part of a broader package that was axed in 2017.
The rules, adopted in 2023, expanded the definition of a data breach that telecoms would have to report and expanded the kinds of customer information the companies would have to protect.
“If we must live in a world where agencies can issue rules, the CRA plays an important role by interposing democratic accountability in that process for the most significant regulations,” the GOP lawmakers wrote in a Wednesday filing.
The group was led by Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., and Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Wis., and included Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. Their attorney was Trent McCotter, who’s representing the nonprofit currently fighting to overturn the FCC’s Universal Service Fund.
The lawmakers want the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to rehear the case with a full panel of 16 judges rather than three. Several conservative or business groups like the Cato Institute and U.S. Chamber of Commerce also submitted filings asking judges to rehear the case.
A group of 22 states also planned to submit a filing, but it wasn’t yet posted Friday morning. The group was led by the office of Iowa Attorney General Mike Naig, a Republican.
The FCC is likely to reverse the rules at some point, and hasn’t initiated an enforcement action based on them. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, a commissioner at the time, dissented when the order was adopted, saying it “plainly violates the law” for the same reasons the Republicans and industry identified, and the agency has said it’s been reviewing the order since last year.
Still, the telecom trade groups wouldn’t be satisfied with that outcome. They want the precedent overturned so pieces of nullified rules can’t be reinstated. Congress has used the CRA to eliminate 16 Biden-era rules since the start of 2025, and the industry groups have told the court they want those to remain off the books.
“The panel’s decision renders the CRA’s reissuance bar a virtual dead letter, reinstating agency powers that Congress intended to abrogate,” the trade groups wrote in a Monday filing.
The industry groups, which include NCTA, USTelecom, and CTIA, also feared the ruling could be used to expand FCC regulations generally. The decision, they said, used a more expansive definition of what company “practices” the agency could oversee, and it was cited in the agency rulemaking on onshoring call centers.
FCC: Rehearing not necessary
Despite Carr’s opposition to the rules, the agency doesn’t want the case reheard. In a July 2 filing, the FCC said the industry’s policy concerns were overblown.
“Petitioners’ policy concerns are exaggerated,” Sorensen and Justice Department attorneys wrote. “Congress remains free to disapprove under the CRA any subsequent rule issued by an agency. And even outside the CRA process, Congress is always free through legislation to strip a federal agency of authority to act in a given area.”
The government argued the court found the 2023 rules were different from the nixed 2017 rules, and thus agencies couldn’t easily make a small change and re-adopt nullified rules as companies feared.
