Without Fines, FCC Rules May Go 'Effectively Unenforced,’ Agency Says
Major wireless carriers are fighting the agency’s ability to issue fines in a legal battle before the Supreme Court.
WASHINGTON, March 23, 2026 – The Federal Communications Commission is urging the Supreme Court not to strike down the agency’s ability to issue fines when telecom companies violate its rules.
“Forfeitures are among the FCC’s most important enforcement tools,” the agency wrote in a Friday filing with the high court. “Eliminating them could mean that many vital rules – such as those protecting privacy, combating robocalls, and regulating broadcasting – go effectively unenforced.”
If financial penalties were off the table, the agency said it could come to rely more heavily on license suspensions or revocations, “all-or-nothing remedies” that the FCC said give companies fewer avenues to appeal but would ultimately “affect regulated parties far more substantially than forfeitures.”
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