Congressional Democratic leaders remain intent on attaching funding to restore the FCC’s lapsed affordable connectivity program to a year-end legislative package (see 2409170066). Some lawmakers acknowledge the push faces long odds in what’s likely to be a fraught lame-duck session. Some ACP boosters believe Capitol Hill’s lame-duck dynamics could change depending on the outcome of the Nov. 5 election. GOP lawmakers aren’t enthusiastic about attaching ACP money to a legislative vehicle this year, in part citing their longstanding demand for a major overhaul of the program in conjunction with additional funding.
A federal judge stopped an AI deepfakes law in California about two weeks after Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed the measure. In a Wednesday order (case 2:24-cv-02527), U.S. District Court of Eastern California Judge John Mendez granted a preliminary injunction, stopping Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) from enforcing AB-2839, which was signed Sept. 17 (see 2409180024). The law would prohibit people and companies from sharing election campaign content containing “materially deceptive and digitally altered or digitally created images or audio or video files” with the intent of influencing elections. Plaintiff Christopher Kohls, under the alias "Mr. Reagan," uses AI to edit and create satirical content about politicians. He challenged the law in court the same day it was signed because he said it would allow politicians and others to sue him for damages and injunctive relief during election season. Kohls argued that the law violates the First and Fourteenth Amendment because it limits his free speech and the law is unconstitutionally vague. “AB 2839," wrote Judge Mendez, "does not pass constitutional scrutiny because the law does not use the least restrictive means available for advancing the State’s interest here.” The judge continued, “As Plaintiffs persuasively argue, counter speech is a less restrictive alternative to prohibiting videos such as those posted by Plaintiff, no matter how offensive or inappropriate someone may find them.”
The International Trade Commission published notices in the Oct. 4 Federal Register on the following AD/CVD injury, Section 337 patent or other trade proceedings (any notices that warrant a more detailed summary will be in another ITT article):
The Commerce Department published notices in the Federal Register Oct. 4 on the following AD/CV duty proceedings (any notices that announce changes to AD/CV duty rates, scope, affected firms or effective dates will be detailed in another ITT article):
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Oct. 4 on AD/CVD proceedings:
The Commerce Department is setting new countervailing duty cash deposit requirements for imports of high chrome cast iron grinding media from India (C-533-931), after finding countervailable subsidization of Indian producers in the preliminary determination of its CV duty investigation. Suspension of liquidation and cash deposit requirements will take effect for entries on or after Oct. 4, the date that the preliminary determination is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register.
The Commerce Department is setting new countervailing duty cash deposit requirements for imports of alkyl phosphate esters from China (C-570-169), after finding subsidization of Chinese producers in the preliminary determination of its CVD investigation. Suspension of liquidation and cash deposit requirements will take effect for entries on or after Oct. 4, the date that the preliminary determination is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register.
GOP running mate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, railed against major tech companies’ content regulation during the Tuesday night vice presidential debate as he attempted to deflect questions about whether he would challenge the Nov. 5 presidential election results if he and former President Donald Trump lose to Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Vance said “big technology companies silencing their fellow citizens” and Harris “saying that rather than debate and persuade her fellow Americans, she'd like to censor people who engage in misinformation” are bigger issues. Harris “is engaged in censorship at an industrial scale,” he said: “She did it during Covid, she's done it over a number of other issues. And that, to me, is a much bigger threat to democracy than what [Trump] said when he said that protesters should peacefully protest” during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Vance alluded to Murthy v. Missouri, in which the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a preliminary injunction that barred dozens of White House officials and four federal agencies from coercing social media platforms to moderate their content. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the decision in June (see 2406260034). Walz said Jan. 6 “was not [about] Facebook ads” and Vance’s description of the 2021 attack is “revisionist history.” Social media platforms remove content when a user is “threatening to kill someone, threatening to do something, that's not censorship," Walz said. "Censorship is book banning. We've seen that.”
The Commerce Department is setting new countervailing duty cash deposit requirements for imports of crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells, whether or not assembled into modules, from Cambodia (C-555-004), Malaysia (C-557-831), Thailand (C-549-852) and Vietnam (C-552-842)., after finding countervailable subsidization of producers and exporters in the four countries in the preliminary determinations of its CVD investigations. Suspension of liquidation and cash deposit requirements will generally take effect for entries on or after Oct. 4, the date that the preliminary determinations were published in the Federal Register, but Commerce is making the suspension of liquidation and CVD cash deposits retroactive to approximately July 6 for some Thai and Vietnamese companies.
The Commerce Department issued its final determinations in its countervailing duty investigations on aluminum extrusions from China (C-570-159), Indonesia (C-560-841), Mexico (C-201-861) and Turkey (C-489-851). Suspension of liquidation is currently not in effect for entries on or after July 9, 2024, and Commerce will only require cash deposits of estimated CV duties on future entries if it issues a CV duty order.