Brendan Carr's FCC Nom Process Held Hostage

Brendan Carr

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has placed a hold on a Republican nomination to the FCC in response to the agency’s decision to pause a program that would fund wireless internet expansion in rural areas.

According to The Hill, Manchin has announced the hold on Commissioner Brendan Carr’s renomination, a week after FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the agency’s Mobility Fund Phase II program would be suspended temporarily while regulators investigate whether major wireless carriers submitted false data on their coverage maps.

“Last week the FCC finally recognized that their broadband maps were inaccurate,” Manchin said in a statement. “That’s something that I have been saying since day one. But the answer is not to put the Mobility Fund on an indefinite hold that prevents states like West Virginia from receiving the funding they desperately need to deploy mobile broadband.”

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) had also placed a hold on Carr’s nomination earlier this year in another dispute with the FCC.

Pai said last week that the agency would be looking into whether “one or more major carriers” had submitted false broadband mapping data in violation of commission rules.

The chairman said the rollout of the $4.53 billion mobility fund would be suspended until the investigation is complete.

A spokeswoman for the FCC declined to comment.