In what would normally be an extraordinary action, but which is becoming commonplace, the FCC thumbed its nose at Congress and raised rates for telephone and video calls placed from jails and prisons.

The FCC under Jessica Rosenworcel issued new rules in 2024 that lowered prison calling rates that came as a result of the Martha Wright-Reed Fair and Just Communication Act, enacted by Congress. Earlier this year, the FCC put the rate reductions on hold and recently ruled to make the reversal of the law permanent.

The FCC was reacting to heavy lobbying from the handful of companies that specialize in providing prison calling, along with lobbying from jail and prison officials who benefit by sharing in the revenues from inmate calls. The new Congressional Act not only cut rates but also eliminated the payment of commissions to jails.

The FCC didn’t only raise calling rates. The new order adds a 2-cent facility fee to each call. The FCC rules now allow the prison carriers to add a fee to cover “safety and security’ costs. The FCC also created a new category of even higher rates for extremely small jails that house fewer than 50 inmates. Finally, the FCC now allows prison carriers to add a 6.7% increase to rates for inflation.

The new FCC rules kept a few of the provisions of the original Act. Carriers can’t pay commissions to jails and prisons from Interstate calling. The Act also eliminated a lot of ancillary fees that were charged mostly to families of inmates.

I call the ruling extraordinary because I can’t recall an FCC in the past that so blatantly decided to ignore a law passed by Congress. The only other time I recall the FCC having a major issue with a law was when Chairman Mark Fowler in the 1980s took exception to Congressional rules related to the Fairness Doctrine, although there might have been other instances. The FCC was created as an independent agency by Congress, and it’s assumed that the Agency is required to follow explicit laws enacted by Congress.

This is not the only federal agency ignoring Congress. NTIA, at the behest of the Administration, is refusing to award grants from the Digital Equity Act. The NTIA is also mulling over sending excess BEAD funds, called non-deployment funds, back to the Treasury. These actions are in direct violation of the funding rules created by the IIJA legislation that funded BEAD and Digital Equity.

The obvious party to address a rogue FCC and NTIA is Congress, but for now, they seem to be ceding power to the Executive branch. It’s possible that the Courts could act to make the FCC and the Administration follow the law. There was a recent lawsuit filed by NDIA that challenges the ability of the Administration and the NTIA to kill the Digital Equity Act.

There are also Supreme Court rulings over the last few years that seemingly make it more difficult for federal agencies to act on their own. The Supreme Court ruled in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo  to effectively end the Chevron deference and said that federal agencies are on shaky ground when they make decisions that are not explicitly directed by Congress. In the 2025 ruling, McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates, Inc. v. McKesson Corp., the Supreme Court ruled that Courts can more easily disagree with rulings made by federal agencies. It would seem those two court decisions provide a lot of ammunition for attacking the FCC decision on prison calling rates.