Government shutdown halts the Trump FCC’s deregulation agenda

The companies that have been the beneficiaries of the Trump Federal Communications Commission’s deregulation are now discovering that a government that does nothing cannot serve their interests. Amazing as it may seem to those who have built their careers by proclaiming “government overreach,” closing the doors of the FCC hurts their businesses. For instance, consider the following examples of how the FCC shutdown is hurting telecommunications companies: The proposed merger of T-Mobile and Sprint has stopped dead in its tracks, the proposed merger of broadcast giants Nexstar and Tribune is also on ice, and the push for 5G wireless that the Trump FCC calls a national security-tinged “race” with China is slowed if the Commission cannot approve new 5G-capable phones and infrastructure. It is important to recognized that this is not a situation where employees walk back in and pick up where they left off a few days before. Over the course of a month (or more) so much new has piled up on the Commission’s plate that the first thing to do upon returning is to assess the new pile, the second step is to catch up on other developments in the intervening period, then the third step is to reprioritize. Only after that step-by-step process can the Commission get back to full productivity. Even if the Trump shutdown ends tomorrow, its effects at the Trump FCC will be felt for a long time to come.

[Tom Wheeler, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission from 2013 to 2017, is a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School]