The House Commerce Committee continued considering the Save the Internet Act net neutrality bill (HR-1644) through Wednesday afternoon, after spending hours debating and voting on a litany of Republican-led amendments that Democrats claimed were mainly aimed at stonewalling advancement of the measure. The committee was expected to have ultimately advanced HR-1644 on a party-line vote. It still needed to handle many amendments and the measure's underlying text. HR-1644 and Senate companion S-682 would add a new title to the Communications Act that reverses the FCC order, rescinding its 2015 rules. The bill would restore reclassification of broadband as a Communications Act Title II service (see 1903060077).
AT&T “will have no other choice” but to sue certain Florida local governments the carrier claims are flouting the state’s 2017 small-cells law and FCC infrastructure rulings, unless the Florida legislature passes a bill to tighten the law pre-empting local governments, said AT&T Senior Counsel Tracy Hatch Tuesday. Some members at the livestreamed House Ways and Means Committee hearing questioned the extent of problems. Oregon lawmakers weighed different ways to spur broadband deployment in another hearing Tuesday.
A Wednesday House Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee hearing on the FCC's fiscal year 2020 budget request is likely to provide a first glimpse at whether House Democrats live up to expectations they'll do more critical oversight hearings on the agency under their regained majority of the chamber (see 1811140055), lobbyists told us. The Senate Appropriations Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Subcommittee paid only limited attention to NTIA, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and Patent and Trademark Office during Tuesday's hearing on the Commerce Department's FY 2020 budget request.
House Commerce Committee Republicans are likely to file “several” amendments to the Save the Internet Act net neutrality bill for consideration at the committee's Wednesday markup but see virtually no chance to defeat the bill outright given prospects for uniform support from panel Democrats, said ranking member Greg Walden, R-Ore., in an interview. HR-1644 and Senate companion S-682 would add a new title to the Communications Act that reverses the FCC order rescinding its 2015 rules. The bill retroactively would restore reclassification of broadband as a Communications Act Title II service (see 1903060077).
As frustrated stakeholders watch an FCC drafting process that they want to be more transparent for an NPRM circulating on USF budgets, concerns about the document's details (see 1903270042) are mounting (see 1903280050). All stakeholders we interviewed this week and last wish the rulemaking had been set for consideration at a monthly commissioners' meeting, so it would be public three weeks beforehand. Or, they wanted it released another way in advance.
The West Virginia Public Service Commission opened its annual state USF investigation. Case 19-0374-T-GI will look generally at use of USF funding by eligible telecom carriers, with findings to be reported to the FCC and Universal Service Administrative Co., said Thursday's order.
An NTCA official met with aides to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks on a proposal to end USF rate floor, circulated for a vote at the April 12 commissioners' meeting (see 1903220055). “If the rate floor were to increase dramatically in coming months due to a stalled debate over how otherwise to proceed, this would cause significant harm to rural consumers,” NTCA said Thursday in docket 10-90. The harms would come from “voice telephony rates that could increase by nearly 50 percent per month” and “suppressed network investment,” the group said: “The public interest … necessitates prompt action, and the draft report and order provides the best vehicle for such action.”
The FCC told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit it should reject as untimely a March 5 petition seeking judicial review, after the agency denied a Sandwich Isles Communications request to reconsider a 2016 order saying the Hawaiian telco must repay $27.3 million in improper USF payments it received 2002-2015 (see 1901030024). SIC said in a March 5 petition the FCC wrongly ignored a report from an independent consulting firm that it owed only $4.1 million in overpayments. “By ignoring the evidence, the FCC acted arbitrarily and capriciously,” SIC said (in Pacer, docket 19-1056). The FCC said in a filing posted Thursday that regardless of the merits, the petition for review was due at the court 60 days after the FCC released an order rejecting the telco’s claims. The window closed March 4, the regulator said: “Because Sandwich Isles failed to file its petition within the statutory filing period, this Court is ‘constrained to dismiss the untimely petition for review for want of jurisdiction.’”
FCC members and others ramped up rhetoric on a draft NPRM on a potential USF budget, which hasn't been made public. The commission declined to comment. Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, the point person on the rulemaking, is "troubled by early critiques of this item," he tweeted Thursday. "Beyond not having read it, these people don’t seem to have any idea what they are talking about. Shocking for DC, I know." Three of four "USF programs already have hard spending caps & the other has a soft cap requiring Commission action if it were exceeded," he said. "An overall cap doesn’t add new budgetary pressures than those that already exist!" He said, "Instead, an overall cap will force the Commission to seriously grapple with the consequences of raising an individual program’s cap for the total fund, and more thoughtfully confront how it spends consumers’ hard-earned dollars." Commissioner Geoffrey Starks tweeted, "How can we talk about capping our Universal Service programs at a time when the Commission doesn’t seem to have a good handle on who currently has broadband and who does not?" The reported proposal (see 1903270042) "to cap USF funding directly contradicts Chairman [Ajit] Pai’s oft-repeated mantra that his primary focus is to close the digital divide," said Public Knowledge Communications Justice Fellow Alisa Valentin. "Congress has long directed the Commission to ensure that every American has access to essential communications services." Benton Foundation Executive Editor Kevin Taglang said, "We can’t extend broadband’s reach throughout rural America with a USF cap." It's "premature" to consider capping Lifeline, one part of USF, said National Consumer Law Center Staff Attorney Olivia Wein. This would "unnecessarily ration Lifeline support," she added.
A draft NPRM on the USF budget asks some questions that concern stakeholders inside and outside the FCC. Others welcomed a look at the program's spending, since it has been some time since this area was examined through such a proceeding. The NPRM circulated Tuesday to commissioners asks many questions, isn't overly long and doesn't draw tentative or other conclusions, agency officials told us Wednesday. Some saw signals of where an eventual order might go in the NPRM's questions. They fear the potential for eventual spending curbs via what could be the first-of-a-kind-cap.