Biden Backs FY 2022 FCC, FTC, NTIA Increases

President Joe Biden proposed substantial budget increases Friday for the FCC, FTC and most tech-focused agencies within the Commerce and Justice departments for FY 2022, in documents released Friday. The administration proposed a smaller increase for the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and would keep CPB's funding at $475 million.

The FCC would get almost $388 million, including $11.8 million for its Office of Inspector General. That’s a 14% increase over the $341 million in FY 2021 for base operations (see 2012210055). An FCC budget document lumped in the $33 million it received in the FY 2021 appropriations and COVID-19 aid package to implement the Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability Act, which would put the commission’s proposed budget increase for FY 2022 at 3.7%.

The FCC expects to add 78 full-time employees in FY 2022, including additions to the Enforcement, Public Safety, Wireless and Wireline bureaus. The Office of Economics and Analysis is among others that would get more staff. The FCC said its goals for FY 2022 include pursuing “policies to help bring affordable, reliable, high-speed broadband to 100 percent of the country.” Biden seeks universal broadband access (see 2103310064).

Biden’s budget proposal incorporates his infrastructure plan. It didn’t detail how it would allocate broadband spending. The administration and Senate Republicans recently appeared to agree on setting connectivity money at $65 billion, dividing on how to designate it (see 2105250002).

The administration requested $390 million for the FTC. That’s an 11% increase over the $351 million it got for FY 2021, and up 110 full-time employees from FY 2021. Commissioners approved the budget request 4-0, acting Chairwoman Rebecca Kelly Slaughter wrote OMB Friday. The agency expects to collect $13 million from Do Not Call fees and $136 million from Hart-Scott-Rodino Act filing fees. The FTC is requesting $18.5 million for the additional 110 employees.

The FTC wants to add 36 staffers to the Competition Bureau for “identifying and challenging anticompetitive mergers and conduct in complex and increasingly pervasive technology markets.” It plans for 30 of those staffers to support merger and litigation activity and five for paralegal work to assist in investigations, litigation and policy projects. The agency wants to add 13 staffers to the Consumer Protection Bureau to “support increasing needs in enforcement, privacy, and emerging technologies.” It plans to hire six of those employees to help the bureau better “understand quickly evolving technological issues implicated by its casework and keep pace with litigation demands.” It also plans to hire one staffer in the Office of the Chief Privacy Officer to “assist in managing the agency’s continuous privacy monitoring program and privacy threshold analysis for new projects.”

The agency plans to hire eight employees for the Economics Bureau to “increase the amount of economic analysis that guides the Commission’s consumer protection and competition policies and enforcement.” Another 10 employees would support “heavy litigation workload in the regional offices for consumer protection and competition matters.”

NTIA would get $89.5 million, an almost 97% increase from FY 2021. This includes $26.7 million for an “advanced communications research test site.” The administration’s earlier discretionary budget proposal called for giving NTIA $39 million “for advanced communications research,” to “support the development and deployment of broadband and 5G technologies by identifying innovative approaches to spectrum sharing” (see 2104090041).

The funding request for CPB -- $475 million in FY 2024, $20 million for the public broadcasting interconnection system and $29.5 million for the Department of Education’s Ready to Learn program in FY 2022 -- “underscores that federal funding for public media is a vital investment,” said CPB CEO Patricia Harrison. Protect My Public Media said Biden’s request “recommended preserving investments in local public media stations,” and urged members to press their representatives to increase the amount of funding. America’s Public Television Stations CEO Patrick Butler said earlier this year that APTS would seek $50 million increases for CPB in each of the next two years (see 2102220070).

The National Institute of Standards and Technology would get almost $1.5 billion, up more than 44% from FY 2021. The Patent and Trademark Office would get almost $4 billion, up 8%. CISA would get $1.7 billion, up about 2%. DOJ's Antitrust Division would get $201 million, up 9%.

For our earlier news bulletin on the administration's budget, see here.