US President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Brendan Carr, the top Republican on the Federal Telecommunications Commission, as the new chairman of the broadcasting, telecommunications and internet regulator.
Carr is a longtime member of the commission, known as the FCC, and previously served as the agency's general counsel.
He has been unanimously confirmed by the Senate, the upper house of the United States parliament, three times and was nominated by Trump and current President Joe Biden for regulator.
The FCC is an independent agency despite being overseen by Congress, but Trump suggested he wanted to place it under tighter presidential control, in part to use the regulator to punish television stations he accused of biased coverage.
Carr wrote a section dedicated to the FCC in Project 2025, a government program developed by the ultra-conservative group the Heritage Foundation that calls for a huge cut in public service and the dismantling of federal agencies.
In a statement congratulating Trump on his election victory, Carr said he believes "the FCC will have an important role to play in controlling big technology companies, ensuring broadcasters operate in the public interest and unleashing economic growth."
"Commissioner Carr is a warrior for free speech and fought against regulatory lawfare that has stifled Americans' freedoms and held back our economy," Trump said.
"This will end the regulatory onslaught that has hamstrung America's job creators and innovators and ensure the FCC meets rural America's needs," the Republican added in a statement released Sunday.
The five-member commission will have a 3-2 Democratic majority until 2025, when Trump will appoint a new member.
Carr benefited from the support of tycoon Elon Musk, owner of the social network X (formerly Twitter), appointed by Donald Trump to head a "government efficiency" commission.
The New York Times recalled that Carr opposed the FCC's decision on October 14 to withdraw an important subsidy from Starlink, one of Musk's companies.
Carr has publicly spoken out against video-sharing app TikTok, owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance, and insisted it should be removed from Apple and Google's app stores due to security risks and breaches of users' privacy.
On Saturday, the president-elect nominated as Secretary of Energy the executive of the oil company Liberty Energy, Chris Wright, a defender of the controversial 'fracking' (hydraulic fracturing technique used to obtain gas and oil) and who rejects the existence of climate change.
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