Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

28. Federal Communications Commission · Minor

Conduct a top-to-bottom review and rescind outdated FCC rules

Partially done

857 28. Federal Communications Commission

“The FCC should engage in a serious top-to-bottom review of its regulations and take steps to rescind any that are overly cumbersome or outdated.”

What has happened

  1. Partially done

    The deletions have continued at roughly monthly intervals for a year — nine further Federal Register rules between 2025-08-20 and 2026-06-24, including one direct final rule repealing about 21 rule provisions and parts covering some seven pages of the CFR, a wireline-specific sweep on 2026-04-16, and this one. The sweep is running, not finished, which is what holds this item below `done`; the Commission also withdrew part of one direct final rule on 2026-01-30 after adverse comment, which is the process working as designed.

  2. Partially done

    The first deletions took effect. Direct final rule FCC 25-40 (adopted 2025-07-24, published 2025-08-04, effective 2025-10-03) eliminated outdated and obsolete rules across 47 CFR parts 1, 24, 63 and 79 — the telegraph, rabbit-ear receiver and phone booth rules among them — followed the same week by a delegations-of-authority order and an order removing open-internet and interconnection provisions.

  3. Attempted

    The FCC opened the review by Public Notice DA 25-219, "In re: Delete, Delete, Delete", GN Docket 25-133, seeking public input on identifying FCC rules for the purpose of alleviating unnecessary regulatory burdens. The Notice frames itself as implementing the President's deregulatory executive orders. A docket only at this point: nothing rescinded.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • The full Delete, Delete, Delete series in the Corpus: 2025-14702 and 2025-14704 (2025-08-04), 2025-15107 (2025-08-08), 2025-15919 (2025-08-20), 2025-16351 (2025-08-26), 2025-16641 (2025-08-29), 2025-21807 (2025-12-03, proposed), 2025-22633 (2025-12-12), 2026-00612 (2026-01-14), 2026-01442 (2026-01-26), 2026-01884 (2026-01-30, withdrawal), 2026-07343 (2026-04-16), 2026-12510 (2026-06-22) and 2026-12766/12767 (2026-06-24). A further 24 mooted or outdated petitions were put up for dismissal on 2026-08-31 (2026-17774). 2026-09-10: FCC 26-56 (FR 2026-18478, 91 FR 57513, GN Docket 25-133 with CG Docket 03-123), Telecommunications Relay Service ASCII Format Requirement, final rule eliminating the requirement that TTY-based relay services communicate in ASCII — “this outdated regulatory mandate”, in the Commission’s words. Another deletion in the same docket; the sweep is still running, so the rung holds. The order was adopted 2026-08-21 and takes effect 2026-10-13, and its text calls itself a “Delete, Delete, Delete, Report and Order” (found in scan triage 2026-09-10, which the scan did not propose this item for; full text read in review 2026-09-11).
  • Leveled partial under the playbook’s open-ended-ask rule: the review the Quote asks for happened and rescissions followed, but the object is the outdated rules themselves and they are not all gone — the docket is still producing deletions in the most recent month of the window. The alternative reading — the Quote asks for a review and for steps to rescind, and both were delivered, so done — is raised for the ticket 26 consistency pass.
  • Overlaps #2216 (major, same printed page), which reads the same deregulatory turn for the media ownership rules specifically. Delete, Delete, Delete has not touched a media ownership or universal service rule; the national ownership cap went by a separate Report and Order, FCC 26-53.
Action
rescind
Object
Overly cumbersome or outdated FCC regulations
ID
2217