FCC Urged To Ask Congress To Change Ownership Caps

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who helped craft the 39% national TV station ownership cap in 2004, says FCC Chairman Brendan Carr should seek new legislation from Congress if he wants to change or eliminate the limit.

DeLay argued in a recent opinion piece that the cap is a statute enacted by Congress, not a mere FCC rule that regulators can modify on their own. “Regulatory agencies cannot defy or modify laws enacted by Congress,” he wrote. 

“If Chairman Carr wants to raise the statutory cap, he should ask Congress to pass a law giving him authority to do that.” He added that the 39% limit is “a statute, not a suggestion,” quoting former Republican FCC Chairman Mike O’Rielly.

Tom DeLay

The comments come as the FCC prepares to vote on August 6, 2026, on a proposal to eliminate the longstanding national audience reach cap and replace it with a case-by-case public-interest review. Carr has already granted a waiver allowing one major merger to exceed the limit and has pushed to abolish the restriction altogether, citing changes in the media marketplace driven by streaming and digital platforms.

DeLay, a Texas Republican who served as House Majority Leader from 2003 to 2005, described the bipartisan deal that produced the current rule. In the fall of 2003, Republicans controlled the House, Senate, and White House, yet Congress was deadlocked on an appropriations bill. The dispute centered on a Senate provision, advanced by the late Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), that would have locked the national ownership limit at 35% of U.S. households.

Earlier that summer, the FCC under Chairman Michael Powell had voted to raise the cap from 35% to 45%. 

Networks such as Fox and CBS, which were approaching or nearing the old limit through acquisitions of owned-and-operated stations, supported the higher threshold. Affiliate station groups opposed it, fearing networks would dominate future station sales. Stevens, an ally of the affiliates, inserted the 35% statutory limit into the Senate appropriations measure.

As House Majority Leader, DeLay blocked any spending bill containing Stevens’s language. He supported the Bush administration’s broader deregulatory approach at the FCC but shared House Republicans’ concerns about the agency’s original 45% proposal. In the intervening months, both CBS and Fox had acquired stations that brought their reach to nearly 39% of national households. 

DeLay insisted any compromise protect those lawful acquisitions from forced divestitures.

The two lawmakers ultimately agreed on legislation setting the cap at 39% and barring the FCC from raising it through its periodic media-ownership reviews. The agency could waive the limit only to help companies come into compliance. The provision was included in the Fiscal Year 2004 Consolidated Appropriations Act and signed into law by President George W. Bush.

DeLay said his policy principles remain the same as in 2004. He expressed some sympathy for Carr’s goals in today’s more competitive media environment and noted that he would have preferred giving the FCC continuing authority to review the cap at the time. 

Stevens, however, wanted to constrain the agency permanently. “My end of the deal was that the cap would be raised to 39%, and in return, Stevens received certainty that the FCC wouldn’t and couldn’t raise it higher,” DeLay wrote. He said he now feels obligated to defend that bargain after Stevens’s death, even if it places him on the side of limiting agency discretion.

DeLay emphasized that, despite his support for deregulation and the Trump administration, his loyalty rests with the Constitution’s allocation of authority to Congress.