Sen Manchin (D-WV) Manchin puts hold on Carr's FCC nomination over wireless internet fund delay

Sen Joe Manchin (D-wV) has placed a hold on Commissioner Brendan Carr's renomination to the Federal Communications Commission in response to the FCC’s decision to pause a program that would fund wireless internet expansion in rural areas. Sen Manchin announced the hold on 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.

Sen Manchin said that “inaccurate” maps are not a good enough reason to put the funds on hold. “Last week the FCC finally recognized that their broadband maps were inaccurate,” Sen Manchin said. “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.”