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Law360 (May 1, 2020, 7:04 PM EDT) -- Native American tribal governments stretched thin by the impact of the coronavirus outbreak have called on the Federal Communications Commission to give them more time to vie for valuable spectrum licenses.
The six-month window for tribes to apply for free licenses in the 2.5 GHz band kicked off in February, the same month COVID-19 began spreading across the nation, and tribes say their efforts have all been pivoted to mitigating the effect of the pandemic on their communities.
"Tribal nations are fighting for the health and welfare of their citizens, making resources that could be directed, during normal times, to performing due diligence on potentially obtaining 2.5 GHz spectrum extremely scarce," the National Tribal Telecommunications Association said in a petition posted to the FCC on Friday.
The association said that, during the current crisis, "it is difficult, if not impossible, for many of the tribal governments to devote the time and resources necessary to perform due diligence prior to applying for the spectrum."
The deadline for their applications is Aug. 3, however, the association has asked the agency to push it to Nov. 2. The FCC declined to comment on the request.
Tribal nations have been hit particularly hard by the virus, and the $8 billion in emergency funding that Congress has earmarked to help buoy those communities hasn't yet reached them.
A part of the holdup stems from a legal battle the tribes launched in mid-April to bar the Trump administration's effort to distribute some of the money to for-profit Native corporations.
A D.C. federal judge doled the tribal nations a major win this past week when he blocked the federal government from distributing any of the cash to these corporations, but he stopped short of awarding federally recognized tribes all of the purse.
The emergency funding was originally set aside for tribes as part of the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, which was signed into law on March 27. Lawmakers chided the U.S. Department of the Treasury this past week for failing to distribute the resources more than a month after the stimulus package was enacted.
A Congressional coalition led by Rep. Deb Haaland, D-N.M., said the D.C. federal court's decision this past week doesn't prevent the department from releasing resources to federally recognized tribal governments.
A representative for the Treasury Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
--Additional reporting by Kelcee Griffis, Kevin Stawicki, Andrew Westney and Stephen Cooper. Editing by Nicole Bleier.
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