NATE on Senate Commerce Confirmation Hearing for FCC Nominee Danielle Thumann Severs

NATE congratulated Danielle Thumann Severs as the Senate Commerce Committee took up her nomination to the FCC at Tuesday’s confirmation hearing. “She has worked directly with tower and fiber builders across the country and understands what it takes to get networks permitted and built,” said President and CEO Todd Schlekeway, noting that NATE brought together a 12-organization coalition behind her nomination and urging the Committee to send it to the full Senate quickly. Severs is NATE’s 2026 Regulatory Champion of the Year, and the Association also credited the Commission’s recent work to ease permitting and put more spectrum to use as a source of steadier work for crews and small businesses.

Senate Advances Bipartisan Permitting Bill With Broadband Provisions

The Senate voted 73-25 on Monday to advance the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act (S. 5653), the Capito-Heinrich-Lee-Whitehouse permitting package, clearing a key procedural hurdle toward floor debate. Though built mainly around energy and transmission permitting, the bill carries broadband provisions, including an exclusion from NEPA review for federally funded broadband projects in rights-of-way that already underwent environmental analysis and an exemption for repairing or replacing telecommunications facilities that do not increase capacity by more than 20 percent. NATE has backed the related Accelerating Broadband Permits Act and continues to press for communications infrastructure to be included in federal permitting reform, and the scope of that fast-track treatment is what the industry will watch as the bill moves.

FCC Accepts SpaceX’s $8 Billion Spectrum Application, Advancing Starlink Mobile

The FCC accepted for filing SpaceX’s application to acquire 546 paired 800 MHz licenses from Grain Management, a roughly $8 billion deal that would give Starlink Mobile nationwide low-band spectrum. Acceptance is a procedural step rather than approval, with public comments due Dec. 1 and the big three carriers already opposing, and any build-out conditions on Grain’s licenses would carry over to SpaceX. For the tower sector, a satellite-mobile carrier assembling terrestrial spectrum reinforces the read that SpaceX still needs ground sites to compete.

FCC Moves to Finalize Wireless-Siting Rules This Month

The FCC’s November agenda includes finalizing rules to streamline local review of certain wireless-infrastructure modifications, part of Chairman Carr’s broader push to speed deployment, along with an A-CAM extension that would prevent a loss of support for nine rural carriers while the Commission weighs broader high-cost reforms. Faster, more predictable siting review goes directly to the permitting delays that slow member companies’ builds.

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