On Sunday evening, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he will name Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Brendan Carr as Chair of the FCC. Because Commissioner Carr is a sitting Commissioner, no Senate confirmation is needed, and he will become FCC Chairman as of Inauguration Day on January 20, 2025.
While Carr was widely seen as
On November 12, 2024, the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County (the “court”) released is decision holding that the promotional effort to award $1 million to persons who indicated their support for the U.S. Constitution did not constitute a lottery under Pennsylvania law. This decision marks a rare instance in which a court has
On October 22, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (“NIST”) Internet of Things (“IoT”) Advisory Board released the Internet of Things Advisory Board Report, which concludes that IoT development has progressed more slowly than anticipated and identifies 26 findings that explain the slower pace of development and growth. The Report offers 104 recommendations
This quarterly update highlights key legislative, regulatory, and litigation developments in the third quarter of 2024 related to artificial intelligence (“AI”) and connected and automated vehicles (“CAVs”). As noted below, some of these developments provide industry with the opportunity for participation and comment.
I. Artificial Intelligence
Federal Legislative Developments
There continued to be strong bipartisan
This is part of an ongoing series of Covington blogs on the implementation of Executive Order No. 14110 on the “Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence” (the “AI EO”), issued by President Biden on October 30, 2023. The first blog summarized the AI EO’s key provisions and related OMB guidance, and subsequent
In a precedent decision, on 13 November 2024, the EU General Court annulled significant parts of a Commission Regulation, which sought to restrict or place under scrutiny the addition of certain botanicals containing hydroxyanthracene derivatives (“HADs”) to foods. The Court held that the Commission had exceeded its powers by seeking to regulate botanical “preparations.” Moreover,
On October 18, 2024, the IRS issued final regulations on withholding for qualified retirement plan payments made to United States taxpayers living outside of the country. The final regulations come five years after the IRS issued proposed regulations on the topic and almost four decades after the IRS issued Notice 87-7, the previous authority
On October 28, Texas State Representative Giovanni Capriglione (R-Tarrant County) released a draft of the Texas Responsible AI Governance Act (“TRAIGA”), after nearly a year collecting input from industry stakeholders. Representative Capriglione, who authored Texas’s Data Privacy and Security Act (discussed here) and currently co-chairs the state’s AI Advisory Council, appears likely to
With U.S. President Trump returning to the White House, we expect the regulatory landscape facing technology and communications companies to shift significantly, if not uniformly.
On the one hand, media and telecommunications companies that have long been regulated heavily by the FCC can likely expect a more deregulatory environment than they have experienced under the
As 47th President of the United States, Donald Trump may be more focused and strategic than he was as the 45th, evidence of which may be a tweet of his from Sunday:
Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments (in the Senate!), without which