Law Professor to Carr: Best to Avoid Rosenworcel’s Mistakes

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6, 2024 – A law professor at Boston College has a simple message for incoming Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr: Best to play the game inside the 40-yard lines.

Daniel Lyons, who is also B.C.’s Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, said Carr should apply lessons from Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel’s leadership as he prepares to take over on Jan. 20.

“One lesson for incoming Chairman Carr is to resist the temptation to lead the FCC as a happy warrior in America’s broader culture wars,” Lyons said in a Thursday article. “It would be a mistake [for Carr] to become the Rosenworcel of the right, for example by pursuing a rulemaking to limit the scope of Section 230 protections for interactive computer services.”

Lyons cited a Monday report by New Street Research Policy Advisor Blair Levin stating that Rosenworcel had “the least consequential term as Chair in modern FCC history. " Lyons said Carr could repeat this if he strayed from the FCC’s bread-and-butter issues, like regaining spectrum auction authority.

“Carr should focus on important issues core to the FCC’s basic operations. This must include restoration of the agency’s spectrum auction authority,” Lyons said. “This core telecommunications issue is a fight worth expending precious agency political capital.” 

Rosenworcel, Lyons said, used her one-vote majority at the FCC to focus on two controversial rulemakings – the Title II reclassification order applied to broadband Internet Service Providers and the digital discrimination rules.

“In many ways, Rosenworcel’s tenure was a microcosm of the Biden administration as a whole: a voter mandate for a moderate return to normalcy was repurposed to further a progressive agenda,” Lyons said.

In media appearances after being tapped for FCC Chairman on Nov. 17 by President-elect Donald Trump, Carr has said he wants to combat censorship of political speech by Big Tech, hold broadcasters to their public interest obligations, and strengthen the U.S. space economy driven by low Earth orbit satellite Internet providers like Elon Musk's Starlink. He has also called for advancing national security interests and supporting law enforcement. 

In September House testimony, Carr stressed the importance of spectrum policy.

"Maintaining and extending U.S. leadership in wireless has been one of my top priorities since I joined the Commission in 2017. Getting our spectrum policies right translates directly into bringing Americans across the digital divide, spurring innovation, creating jobs, and growing our economy," he said. “Unfortunately, the Biden-Harris Administration has failed to show the leadership necessary on the spectrum front."

In her Nov. 21 announcement that she will be leaving the FCC, Rosenworcel defended her record over the past four years.

"Together, we accomplished seemingly impossible feats like setting up the largest broadband affordability program in history—which led to us connecting more than 23 million households to high-speed internet, connecting more than 17 million students caught in the homework gap to hotspots and other devices as learning moved online, putting national security and public safety matters with communications front and center before the agency, and launching the first-ever Space Bureau to support U.S. leadership in the new Space Age," Rosenworcel said.