FCC's Initial Contract Review Saves Taxpayers Millions of Dollars

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr announced initial findings and anticipated savings resulting from a top-to-bottom review of agency contracts.  The FCC has undertaken this review consistent with President Trump’s Executive Order 14222, “Implementing the President’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ Cost Efficiency Initiative.”  The FCC’s initial work has reviewed contracts with a focus on identifying areas of redundancy and overspending.  To support this effort, the FCC stood up an internal DOGE team composed of FCC staff and coordinated with the government’s DOGE representatives. Through a combination of scaling down and terminating contracts, the FCC has reduced the total contract ceiling value by more than $567 million. This figure represents cumulative savings from eliminating spending authorization under numerous contracts over multiple years.  In the near term, the elimination or modification of contracts has generated more than $6.7 million in savings for the remainder of 2025 from the cancellation of obligated spending.  In addition, this effort has also generated more than $21.1 million in savings for 2026, effectively reducing planned contract spending for 2026 by 20 percent. Contract cancellations and modifications thus far have included a wide range of agency work.  Specifically, the review resulted in savings and efficiencies from the elimination or reduction of contracts for redundant or duplicative IT services, lightly used periodicals and press, unnecessary hog trapping services, tasks more efficiently done in-house, IT licenses exceeding the number of active users, and projects completed ahead of schedule or without exhausting the planned budget, among other circumstances. This review effort remains ongoing. More broadly, the Commission is working to improve agency efficiency by removing unnecessary rules and regulations.  Its “In Re: Delete, Delete, Delete” initiative seeks to identify outdated and overly burdensome regulations that should be repealed.  Its dormant docket proceeding seeks to terminate over 2,000 official proceedings that have become dormant and no longer serve a purpose for the American people.