Commerce Department

Today, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross announced the appointment of Robert Tipton (Tip) Osterthaler to serve as Board Chair of the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet Authority).

Today, the U.S. Department of Commerce joined with its government partners to release a Progress Report detailing the accomplishments of the American Broadband Initiative (ABI) after the release of the initial ABI Milestones Report. The Progress Report shows significant achievements across government in removing regulatory barriers to broadband deployment, leveraging public resources for broadband expansion, and maximizing the impact of federal broadband funding.

Today, the Department of Commerce and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a 120-day pilot program to curb illegal online sales of unapproved opioids. Under the program, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will work with three domain name registries, Neustar (.us), Verisign (.com, .net) and Public Interest Registry (.org), to suspend the domain names of websites found to be illegally selling unapproved opioids.