FCC commissioner slams FCC for its partisan hostility to SpaceX
The FCC proves its partisan hostility to SpaceX
Even as the FAA has increasingly appeared to be harassing SpaceX with red tape, FCC commissioner Brendan Carr this week slammed his own agency for what appears to be clearly partisan hostility to SpaceX in its recent decisions and public statements.
Carr noted how only last year the FCC had canceled an almost $900 million grant that it had previously awarded to SpaceX for providing rural communities internet access. When it did so, the FCC claimed that the company had failed to “demonstrate that it could deliver the promised service.”
That claim of course was absurd on its face, considering that Starlink was the only available commercial system that was actually doing this, directly to individual rural customers.
Carr noted however that this absurd FCC decision was made even more ridiculous this week by the FCC’s chairperson, Jessica Rosenworcel, who accused SpaceX of being a “monopoly” because of its success in launching Starlink satellites and providing this service ahead of everyone else.
“[Starlink has] almost two-thirds of the satellites that are in space right now and has a very high portion of internet traffic… Our economy doesn’t benefit from monopolies. So we’ve got to invite many more space actors in, many more companies that can develop constellations and innovations in space.”
As Carr noted publicly,
“You have an agency that in 2023 says that Starlink is not reasonably capable of providing high-speed internet. And then in 2024, they’re saying it’s so capable of providing high-speed internet that we’re going to toss the word monopoly out there. There’s just no way to sort of, I don’t think, square what’s going on here with a fair application of the law or the facts, it just looks like partisan politics in my view.”
Note that Rosenworcel is a Biden appointee, and Carr is a Trump appointee. Even so, Carr’s point fits the pattern we have seen from the federal bureaucracy since Joe Biden became president. It has become decidedly hostile to SpaceX and Elon Musk, and has increasingly taken actions and made statements confirming that partisan hostility.
It could be argued that the FCC canceled the grant last year in order to do what Rosenworcel now desires, to increase competition and help other companies achieve success, but that’s not what the FCC claimed when it canceled the grant. It instead made the demonstrably false statement that Starlink was not doing the job and no longer qualified for the grant, when it was actually doing the job quite well and better than everyone else.
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Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
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The FCC proves its partisan hostility to SpaceX
Even as the FAA has increasingly appeared to be harassing SpaceX with red tape, FCC commissioner Brendan Carr this week slammed his own agency for what appears to be clearly partisan hostility to SpaceX in its recent decisions and public statements.
Carr noted how only last year the FCC had canceled an almost $900 million grant that it had previously awarded to SpaceX for providing rural communities internet access. When it did so, the FCC claimed that the company had failed to “demonstrate that it could deliver the promised service.”
That claim of course was absurd on its face, considering that Starlink was the only available commercial system that was actually doing this, directly to individual rural customers.
Carr noted however that this absurd FCC decision was made even more ridiculous this week by the FCC’s chairperson, Jessica Rosenworcel, who accused SpaceX of being a “monopoly” because of its success in launching Starlink satellites and providing this service ahead of everyone else.
“[Starlink has] almost two-thirds of the satellites that are in space right now and has a very high portion of internet traffic… Our economy doesn’t benefit from monopolies. So we’ve got to invite many more space actors in, many more companies that can develop constellations and innovations in space.”
As Carr noted publicly,
“You have an agency that in 2023 says that Starlink is not reasonably capable of providing high-speed internet. And then in 2024, they’re saying it’s so capable of providing high-speed internet that we’re going to toss the word monopoly out there. There’s just no way to sort of, I don’t think, square what’s going on here with a fair application of the law or the facts, it just looks like partisan politics in my view.”
Note that Rosenworcel is a Biden appointee, and Carr is a Trump appointee. Even so, Carr’s point fits the pattern we have seen from the federal bureaucracy since Joe Biden became president. It has become decidedly hostile to SpaceX and Elon Musk, and has increasingly taken actions and made statements confirming that partisan hostility.
It could be argued that the FCC canceled the grant last year in order to do what Rosenworcel now desires, to increase competition and help other companies achieve success, but that’s not what the FCC claimed when it canceled the grant. It instead made the demonstrably false statement that Starlink was not doing the job and no longer qualified for the grant, when it was actually doing the job quite well and better than everyone else.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Elon not letting up!
“ Flight 5 is built and ready to fly.
Flight 6 will be ready to fly before Flight 5 even gets approved by FAA!”
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1836639170300666277?s=46
The monopoly accusation is cute. It reminds me of a story that during the big trust/monopoly busting era in the early 1900’s the Weyerhaeuser lumber company was accused of being a monopoly because it was so big and made so much money. It was investigated and no charges were filed. The consensus being that they weren’t trying to restrict trade but that they did their job so well that no one could keep up.
(Don’t know if this will slip by the censor…)
It’s clear as day that Ms. Rosenworcel (as Dan Aykroid might have said: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c91XUyg9iWM), “you ignorant DEI you know what,” has as much business at the FCC as Tampon Tim has running for Vice President, but there she is. And she represents a legion of Biden Administration appointees whose only purpose seems to be to scuttle whatever agencies they are working for.
In stark contrast, take a moment to read about the extraordinary life and career of Grace Hopper, a pioneering programmer and patriot who helped to create the modern world. https://spectrum.ieee.org/from-punch-cards-to-python
This, more than anything else that I can imagine, probably “explains” the difference between the America of 1940 – 2000 and the gelded snow flake America of today. (And, no, I do not “hate” Ms. Rosenworcel, but I do feel sorry for her, and I am sad that she serves as such a terrible example of what women might aspire to today.)
We had an EPA problem like that around here.
The local EPA guy would not let Habitat for humanity rebuild houses and give them away without TOTAL lead and asbestos remediation. Even though private citizens could buy, paint over the lead and sequester the asbestos and resell the house.
Our very next door city though because they had a differe3nt EPA guy could do exactly what state law allowed private citizens to do.
Little petty bureaucrats love to express their power over those they dislike.
EPA and FCC need disbanding if this is all they’re going to do
Elon Musk is the stupidest guy in the universe. All he has to do is shut up, follow the party line, appoint lots of DEI hires to positions of authority and endorse the correct ticket and all his problems would disappear
““[Starlink has] almost two-thirds of the satellites that are in space right now and has a very high portion of internet traffic… Our economy doesn’t benefit from monopolies. ‘
Standard liberal argument – if you are big, you are, ipso facto, bad
“If you are big, you are, ipso facto, bad” yet the same liberals work toward a single, tyrannical, world government.
Big Paloota and Col Beausabre: What the left despises is not someone or something that is “big”, but a threat to its power. Successful businessmen or companies that garner a lot of profit have enough power of their own to resist and fight the left, as Musk has been doing. That makes him a threat.
You will notice that the Democrats like Blue Origin and Jeff Bezos. He’s big and powerful, but he also is on their side, part of their team (at least they think so). Same thing with Richard Branson. Thus, for the past two decades both have been given a free ride by the leftist press and the people it carries water for.
I love the accountability of “our” bureaucrats.
Isn’t the entire point of this technocratic edifice that we are ruled by experts? By the system’s own justification, shouldn’t these people be fired?