FCC Chief Is Taking on the Pentagon ... and DOT, NOAA, Energy

In his quest to expand U.S. mobile broadband capacity, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai hasn’t been afraid to anger colleagues in government.

He’s taken on the Pentagon, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as well as the departments of Transportation and Energy. Those agencies have warned that his plans to reallocate spectrum could endanger national security, harm weather forecasts, loosen control of the electrical grid and degrade vehicle safety.

So far, Pai has prevailed.

“Pai is willing to get himself on the hot seat,” said Doug Brake, telecom policy director for the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a ...