John Anderson reports in DIYMedia.net about current pirate radio action, one year after the Federal Communication Commission announced it was scaling back its enforcement bureau and creating so-called “Tiger Teams” that swoop in with a cheaper, swifter form defense against the scourge of pirate radio. "Have they even been populated and trained up yet?" Anderson asks, after reporting that enforcement actions are slightly up from a year ago, but not by any significant amount. Last week the U.S. House Appropriations Committee voted 29-17 for a Federal Communications Commission appropriations bill that would dramatically reduce the FCC budget, mostly to attempt to hamstring net neutrality rule enforcement. But that also means less money for pirate radio enforcement, and lawmakers in the New York City area, who have been very vocal in their calls for increased pirate radio enforcement given the large amount of activity on the airwaves in the area, might not be happy with the figures showing less enforcement in the area this year. So far in 2016 there have been 70 enforcement actions nationally, slightly ahead of the pace of last year's 125 actions. But, Anderson writes, "with party conventions and elections looming, it’s highly unlikely that Congress will get around to awarding any supplementary enforcement tools to the agency beforehand, and with a change in presidential administration on the horizon Chairman Tom Wheeler might very well like to leave this entire issue for his successor to sort out." Read the full story at DIYmedia.net.

(Note: John Anderson is on Wave Farm's board.)