Take 2 on Louisiana Electric Co-Op Broadband After Veto
Louisiana legislators are trying again on a bill to spur rural broadband by electric cooperatives, after Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) vetoed a bill last week that he argued would restrict broadband access in violation of the 1996 Telecom Act. Mississippi Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley advised against SB-406’s restrictions in a Zoom videoconference a few weeks ago with the Louisiana governor’s broadband commission and state Sen. Beth Mizell (R), the NARUC president told us Tuesday.
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The Louisiana House referred another electric co-op bill (SB-10) to the Commerce Committee Monday, after the Senate voted 34-0 Sunday to pass the measure by Mizell. Commerce will take the bill up next week, Committee Assistant Christie Russell said Tuesday. The bill would allow co-ops to provide broadband through an affiliate, while requiring the co-ops to provide nondiscriminatory access to other operators to locate equipment on their electric delivery systems. The legislature passed Mizell’s similar SB-406 last month after amending it -- against co-ops’ wishes -- to include limiting co-op service to unserved areas in their territories (see 2005290039). Mizell, Commerce Committee Chairman Paula Davis (R) and House Speaker Clay Schexnayder (R) didn’t comment Tuesday.
SB-406 “will be ripe to be challenged” as violating the Telecom Act, if enacted, Edwards wrote in a veto message Thursday. “Rather than expand access to broadband, which was Senator Mizell’s intent, the bill prohibits an electric cooperative from providing broadband in serviced areas and at the same time requires an electric cooperative that provides broadband service in an unserved area to give other broadband service providers nondiscriminatory access to its electric delivery system,” he said. The Telecom Act “specifically prohibits any state statute from prohibiting the ability of any entity to provide any telecommunication service,” the governor said. Edwards supports SB-10 as written, he said.
Edwards put rural Louisiana “ahead of big telecom companies,” emailed Association of Louisiana Electric Cooperatives CEO Jeff Arnold. The group supports SB-10 “with no anti-competition provisions,” he said. Arnold sees “no appetite for an override” of SB-406 and doesn’t expect telecom companies to reinstate the removed language on unserved areas. But he expects telecom companies to try to add other language with a new angle, he said. “Both the author of the bill and the Governor are firm that no amendments get on that would hinder the expansion of broadband by limiting competition.”
Edwards’ broadband commission asked for Presley’s opinion, the Mississippi commissioner said. A lead advocate behind Mississippi’s electric co-op bill, Presley said he told the Louisiana group he wouldn’t have supported the measure if it contained such limits. “I would have lobbied against it because it would have been a purposeful setup for failure,” the Democrat said. “These types of provisions are smokescreens and shell games” played by some incumbents “to try to maintain status quo.” A tenth Mississippi co-op announced broadband service Friday because of the state law, noted Presley. Other states, including Kentucky, Arizona and Oklahoma, also asked him for advice, he said: “There’s movement across the country.”
Edwards didn't read the Telecom Act correctly, emailed Free State Foundation Policy Studies Director Seth Cooper. “Electric co-ops are rate-regulated monopolies that are authorized for the specialized purpose of delivering electricity." The act didn’t rewrite every state’s electric co-op act to give them “free reign to enter the broadband Internet services business and operate wherever they want,” he said. However, Cooper said it's "good sense" that the pending SB-10 includes a nondiscrimination provision: “If, in the name of increasing access, states want to take the risk of authorizing electric co-ops to enter the broadband market, those co-ops should be required to make their utility poles available to competing broadband providers on a non-discriminatory basis. Otherwise, electric co-ops could use their monopoly power to impose above-market pole attachment rates on other providers and harm competition.”
“People are serious about wanting better Internet access,” emailed Institute for Local Self-Reliance Director-Community Broadband Networks Initiative Chris Mitchell. “Elected officials that want to continue voting the way AT&T or big cable companies want are putting themselves at risk come election time.”
AT&T declined comment Tuesday. The Louisiana Cable & Telecommunications Association didn’t comment.