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The Republican-led House Oversight Committee has launched an investigation into the FCC’s decision to deny $886 million in federal funding to SpaceX’s Starlink.
In announcing the investigation, Committee Chairman James Comer of Kentucky cited Starlink’s crucial role in helping the US restore internet services to regions ravaged by Hurricane Helene. Comer is now questioning why the $886 million was denied when the funding was meant to help bring high-speed broadband to rural communities, including areas hit by the hurricane.
"The use of Starlink to repair and enhance connectivity in the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Helene suggests that Starlink can support rural communities recovering from natural disasters—and therefore in daily usage, too,” he wrote in a letter to the commission.
Comer also suggests that the federal regulator may have been politically motivated in denying the funds to SpaceX —an allegation the commission denies. As evidence, Comer cites statements from the FCC’s two Republican commissioners, Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington, who’ve been critical of the decision to deny the $886 million in funding.
“Commissioner Carr has argued that the FCC is now among a growing list of administrative agencies that are taking action against [SpaceX CEO] Elon Musk’s businesses,’” the letter adds. “The FCC must ground its decision-making in law and not politics.”
Comer is demanding the FCC turn over all documents and communications about its decision to deny the funds. This includes the FCC’s 2023 decision to reject SpaceX’s appeal, along with any communications “between FCC personnel regarding Elon Musk, the acquisition of X (also known as Twitter)" since December 2020.
The committee announced the investigation as Starlink's deployment in hurricane-affected areas has become political. Last week, Musk also criticized the FCC for denying the federal subsidies, claiming the commission put lives at risk by doing so.
The FCC has been pushing back, questioning why SpaceX needs taxpayer funds when it’s already deploying hundreds of Starlink dishes to hurricane-struck areas.
“Chairwoman Rosenworcel stands by the FCC’s thorough review of a program meant to provide long-term access to reliable and affordable broadband in rural communities,” the FCC said in an earlier statement. “In this instance, the agency denied public funds to more than a dozen companies—not just Starlink—who did not meet the program requirements. As an independent agency, the FCC takes seriously its obligation to ensure that taxpayer dollars only go to entities that fully comply with the rules and the law.”
In February, the FCC chairwoman also sent a letter to a group of Republican lawmakers who questioned why the funds had been denied. One problem is that, in certain US areas, Starlink download speeds are under 100Mbps—below the speed targets for the FCC’s funding program. "Among other things, our technical review demonstrated that Starlink had difficulty meeting the basic uplink and downlink speed standards for the program,” Rosenworcel wrote at the time. “Our finding has since been confirmed by the company’s most recent publicly available performance data.”
The other major issue is that users have to pay an upfront fee to buy the Starlink dish hardware in order to use the satellite internet system. Although SpaceX has been discounting the hardware to $299 in recent weeks the dish cost $600 in 2022. “No other services supported by the program included such high start-up costs on rural consumers," Rosenworcel said.
“Furthermore, our review indicated that in more than 6,501 census blocks where Starlink sought support from the RDOF [Rural Digital Opportunity Fund] program were not unserved rural households, but actually parking lots, traffic medians, and locations that already have service like the Chicago Loop and Newark International Airport,” she added. “When we requested that Starlink no longer seek funding for these locations, the company refused.”
In response to the house committee’s investigation, an FCC spokesperson added: “We have received the letter and will respond as we regularly do.” Comer has asked for an FCC briefing on the matter for no later than Oct. 14.