Senate Committee To Hold Rosenworcel Confirmation Hearing

Jessica Rosenworcel

The Senate Commerce Committee said on Wednesday it will hold a Nov. 17 confirmation hearing for a new term for Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Jessica Rosenworcel, but will not immediately move forward with a hearing for another nominee for the telecommunications regulator, reports Reuters.

Late last month, Biden nominated Rosenworcel for a new term on the five-member commission and designated her chair. Biden also nominated Gigi Sohn, a former senior aide to Tom Wheeler, who served as an FCC chairman under President Barack Obama, a Democrat. The Commerce Committee will not immediately hold a hearing on Sohn's nomination.

Biden waited more than nine months to make nominations for the FCC, which has not been able to address some key issues because it currently has one vacancy and is divided 2-2 between Democrats and Republicans.

Gigi Sohn

“Gigi Sohn is a complete political ideologue who has disdain for conservatives. She would be a complete nightmare for the country,” Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, tweeted Tuesday. He said he’d ask senators “to reject this extreme nominee.”

Graham said Sohn “wants more government control of the airwaves.” It cited her support for net neutrality rules and Sohn’s 2018 tweet saying the FCC should “look at” whether Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. is qualified to hold broadcast licenses.

Sohn’s statement about Sinclair came after the Republican-led FCC questioned whether the company misrepresented facts as it sought a merger. “If true, this allegation raises a legitimate question as to whether Sinclair is fit to be a broadcast licensee,” Sohn said in a blog post linked in the tweet cited by the Journal.

The prospect of delay alarmed Sohn’s supporters. Opponents are “smearing Gigi’s record,” tweeted Craig Aaron, president of the public policy group Free Press. “Gigi Sohn is a brilliant attorney and advocate with a distinguished record inside and outside the FCC.”

The Commerce Committee also will not immediately hold a hearing on the recent nomination of Alan Davidson, a senior adviser at Mozilla, to head the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the executive branch agency principally responsible for advising the White House on telecommunications and information policy issues. NTIA will oversee more than $42 billion in funding approved this month by Congress to expand internet access.

Without being confirmed to a new term, Rosenworcel would need to leave the FCC at the end of the year.

One key issue is whether the FCC under Democrats will reinstate landmark net neutrality rules that were repealed under Trump.

The FCC under President Barack Obama, Trump's predecessor, adopted the net neutrality rules in 2015 barring internet service providers from blocking or throttling traffic, or offering paid fast lanes.