The Bull Moose Project has filed with the FCC, arguing that approving EchoStar’s spectrum sales without an escrow to pay unpaid contractors, vendors and tower companies would betray American workers, and poison every future wireless buildout.
The conservative think tank has entered the fight over EchoStar’s $40-plus billion spectrum selloff, telling the FCC it should not approve the deals until the company sets aside enough money to pay the contractors, tower companies, and infrastructure workers left unpaid after DISH Wireless abandoned its 5G network.
The Bull Moose Project, aligned with the Trump administration’s pro-worker agenda, filed an ex parte comment with the FCC on March 11, 2026, in both spectrum transfer dockets (WT Docket Nos. 25-302 and 25-303), on the same day the Brattle Group report dropped.
President Aiden Buzzetti framed the issue around the administration’s commitment to skilled trades workers: “The companies and workers who climbed the towers, installed the equipment, and built DISH’s network deserve to be paid. The Commission should not allow EchoStar to receive a $40 billion windfall while walking away from its obligations.”
The Dispute in Brief
EchoStar agreed in 2025 to sell its spectrum portfolio for $42.6 billion — $23 billion to AT&T and roughly $20 billion to SpaceX — after FCC Chairman Brendan Carr questioned its buildout compliance. Once those sales were announced, DISH Wireless told tower companies, contractors, and vendors their contracts were “excused,” claiming the FCC’s pressure constituted a force majeure event. EchoStar also structured the deals so that DISH — the subsidiary holding the contracts — receives none of the proceeds, effectively making it judgment-proof.
The wireless infrastructure industry estimates that unpaid obligations to tower companies alone could reach $9 billion. The Wireless Infrastructure Association, NATE: The Communications Infrastructure Contractors Association, and a coalition of more than 40 companies have all asked the FCC to condition its approval on EchoStar establishing an escrow account funded by sale proceeds sufficient to cover those obligations.
What the Bull Moose Project Is Asking
The group supports spectrum sales but wants idle spectrum put to productive use. What it opposes is allowing the transactions to close before vendors have a guaranteed path to payment. Its ask mirrors the industry coalition’s: an escrow funded by sale proceeds, conditioned on FCC approval, that preserves funds for disputes to be resolved in court or through arbitration without the FCC having to adjudicate individual contracts.
The filing makes a pointed legal argument: EchoStar is invoking FCC actions to justify not paying vendors. The Commission, therefore, has a direct interest in ensuring its own proceedings aren’t being used to deny fair compensation to American workers. “If the Commission’s proceedings are being invoked as the basis for denying fair compensation,” Buzzetti wrote, “we believe the Commission has a strong interest in ensuring that its actions do not facilitate those outcomes.”
The filing also cites Crown Castle’s announcement that it is accelerating layoffs of roughly 1,250 employees, about 20% of its workforce, specifically citing DISH’s default as a factor, and points to President Trump’s April 2025 executive order expanding skilled trades apprenticeships as evidence that protecting this workforce is a stated administration priority.
EchoStar’s Defense and What’s Next
EchoStar has argued that the FCC has no authority to condition a spectrum sale on conduct obligations, claiming it cannot find precedent for the Commission imposing conditions on an assignor. The industry coalition counters that the Communications Act’s public interest standard gives the FCC exactly that authority, and that EchoStar’s own force majeure argument, which blames the FCC for its inability to perform contracts, makes the Commission’s involvement unavoidable.
Chairman Carr has not publicly stated his position. When asked at the FCC’s January open meeting, he said only that “the industry stakeholders are working out amongst themselves” the vendor payment issues. Some analysts doubt he will hold up the deals, given that blocking or heavily conditioning them would undercut his own rationale for pushing the spectrum into use quickly. The final tranches of the AT&T transaction are not expected to close until mid-2026, leaving a narrowing window for the FCC to act — or decline to.
For contractors and tower owners, the Bull Moose Project’s filing matters less for its legal weight than its political signal: the argument that EchoStar should pay its builders before pocketing $40 billion is now being made in the language of the current administration’s own priorities, and directed at a chairman who has made protecting the tower workforce a signature issue.
