The FCC released a statement claiming they have saved taxpayers $567M. Chairman Carr stated:
“On my watch, the FCC is focused on delivering great results for the country and doing so in an efficient manner. That starts with being good stewards of taxpayer dollars. From day one, we have been combing through every FCC contract to eliminate redundancies and wasteful spending. No stone is being left unturned. To date, we have reduced more than $567 million in authorized contract spending, including by ending bloated or unnecessary IT contracts. This is an important step towards ensuring long-term efficiency and maintaining our focus on the FCC’s core responsibilities.”
It was discovered in early April that three DOGE employees appeared in the FCC contact / personnel directory. The release acknowledged DOGE staffers working at the FCC.
As with nearly all DOGE claims, there is just general information and no detailed analysis or justifications explaining how cancelling such contracts and expenditures was necessary and won’t affect operations or the services provided by the agency, and no third party auditing of the claimed savings. It’s been found that many DOGE claims in the past were misleading, exaggerated, cancelled worthy services, or were just outright wrong. At the time of publication, the DOGE website did not list the claimed $567M savings at the FCC.
The release noted that “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“. Unnecessary hog trapping services? This is rather funny, though it would seem to me that if someone contracted for hog trapping services in the past, there was probably some really good reason (like an infestation of wild hogs at a facility) as most folks don’t arbitrarily buy such services. Undoubtedly this particular embellishment was added to the release for humor and/or to give more rhetoric fodder to the “burn it all to the ground” administration.
The FCC release also alludes to the FCC Delete, Delete, Delete initiative as “to identify outdated and overly burdensome regulations that should be repealed.”, reinforcing that its focus is erasing regulations, not updating or improving them. The DOGE website has an Agency Deregulation Leaderboard, which lists the FCC as having deleted 11,500 words from regulations, allegedly saving $4.5M. Digging in deeper I found the listing is the result of changes to 47 CFR Part 76 in April involving revising cable television rate regulations. There’s no published docket that I can find and the changes appear to have been approved “on circulation“, with commissioners voting directly, rather than going through the customary Notice and Comment Rulemaking process.
The FCC was contacted for comment regarding publication of details of the cancelled contracts and claimed savings amount, however at the time of publication of this article, no response was received.
This article was originally posted on Radio Artisan.
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