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Carr Testifies at House Energy and Commerce FCC Oversight Hearing, Jan. 14, 2026

January 14, 2026 · House Committee on Energy and Commerce · 3:37:55

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What happened

Brendan Carr testified on January 14, 2026, alongside Commissioners Olivia Trusty and Anna Gomez at the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology hearing titled “Oversight of the Federal Communications Commission,” carried in full on the committee’s own channel. It was Carr’s first appearance before the subcommittee as chairman, as he noted in his written testimony: he first joined the FCC as a staffer in 2012, had interned with this same subcommittee more than 20 years earlier while in law school, and had been confirmed by the Senate three times as a commissioner before President Trump designated him chairman in January 2025.

Carr told the subcommittee the FCC was pursuing an 800-megahertz spectrum pipeline under the auction authority Congress restored in the Working Families Tax Cut Act, and that restoring and unlocking spectrum is central to U.S. leadership in next-generation wireless and to lowering consumer prices. “We now have a real concrete spectrum pipeline, 800 megahertz,” Carr said, adding that the agency had identified at least 100 megahertz for an upper C-band auction and was finalizing rules for AWS-3 and other bands, as the hearing record summarized. In the committee’s own hearing summary, Carr was credited with reporting that the agency had removed over 1,000 rules under his “Build America” agenda, that wireless plan prices were down about 4 percent since January 2025, and that the FCC was strengthening fraud controls in Universal Service Fund programs and robocall mitigation, including removing non-cooperative providers from mitigation databases.

Commissioner Gomez argued the agency had “retreated from core responsibilities” such as affordability and multilingual emergency alerts, and Democratic members challenged Carr on program rollbacks affecting the Affordable Connectivity Program and E-Rate, as the hearing summaries recorded. The hearing produced no immediate regulatory changes; members signaled continued oversight and follow-up questions.

Why it matters

Eight months after his Appropriations appearance, this hearing is Carr’s fullest single statement of the Build America record he is running on: a restored auction authority, an 800-megahertz pipeline with named bands and deadlines, and a deregulation count of more than 1,000 rules removed. It is also the oversight baseline for the FCC’s contested turn — the independence and public-interest-enforcement fight that dominated his December 2025 Senate hearing arrived here in House form, with the affordability criticism carried on the record beside his spectrum case.

Scoreboard watch

This is a candidate item for the weekly scoreboard: Carr’s January 14, 2026 claims of an 800-megahertz spectrum pipeline with at least 100 megahertz identified for an upper C-band auction, and of more than 1,000 rules removed — each as stated at the hearing, to be checked against the FCC’s auction calendar and rulemaking record.

Sources: House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, “Oversight of the Federal Communications Commission,” January 14, 2026 (full hearing on the committee’s channel, embedded above; also carried in full by Forbes Breaking News and CBS News); written testimony of Chairman Brendan Carr filed with the committee, January 14, 2026 (congress.gov); House Energy and Commerce hearing summary, January 14, 2026. All figures and characterizations as stated by Mr. Carr, his fellow commissioners, and committee members at the hearing.