Many E-Rate, Disabilities Supporters Favor HR-5252
E-rate and disability constituencies are solid in support of HR-5252, representatives of teachers, librarians and special needs consumers said Fri. on an Alliance for Public Technology (APT) panel. Speakers held out little hope the bill will pass before a lame duck session, but declared it would improve on current policy.
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The bill’s permanent exemption for E-rate from the Anti- Deficiency Act (ADA) would be extremely welcome at all schools and libraries, said National Education Assn. lobbyist Kim Anderson. The chore of getting annual ADA exemptions drains valuable time and “grassroots” resources, she said: “We do not want to fight this battle every year.” The year no ADA exemption was granted, the program “ground to a halt,” hurting rural and inner city schools, she said. Anderson praised the bill’s requirement of FCC responsibility to fight fraud and abuse in the system, which she said “is very, very minimal” but has seen use as a “rhetorical” device by E-rate opponents. With passage, there would be a procedure that probably would vindicate the system, she said.
Libraries are “a very small piece of the pie” but E-rate is very important to them, American Library Assn. Dir. Lynne Bradley said. Special-needs users and those without broadband connections suffer when libraries can’t meet their needs, she said.
Bradley was more ambivalent on the bill than colleagues, taking a strong stance against its lack of net neutrality provisions. “It’s really all about access,” she said, and “having some preferred users over others really is anathema to us.” Talk about net neutrality often centers on “consumers and competition,” she said, asking how that figures in the public good. “Are we going to have to have an E-rate to access e-government?” she asked, and other speakers added disability services and nonprofit organizations.
Telecom disabilities assistance has been the one social duty not imposed by the FCC after essentially deregulating digital voice, said Karen Peltz-Strauss of KPS Consulting, which works with disabilities groups. E-911, CALEA and USF are the 1996 Telecom Act’s 3 other “economic obligations,” and the FCC has been sure to insert them into all wireless and IP-telecom discussion -- but “they forgot us again,” she said. FCC rules on video description for the blind overturned in 2002 would be codified and ultimately restored under the bill, Jennifer Simpson of the American Assn. for People with Disabilities said.
The bill has minimal chance of passing, said most speakers, including moderator and APT General Counsel Dan Phythyon. But Senate Commerce Committee Chmn. Stevens (R- Alaska) “is holding out hope” for a floor vote during the lame duck session, Phythyon said. The former FCC Wireless Bureau chief said net neutrality, franchise reform and other high-profile issues might bar a floor vote this Congress. Anderson said lame-duck passage might be possible, but she fears Congress could “chop it up to pieces” in conference.
“We're further than we have been since 2002” in building consensus on disabilities-related issues, said Joel Snyder, dir.-described media, National Captioning Institute. Even if the bill doesn’t pass this Congress there’s a good chance “we can get it done” on a bill with fewer controversial provisions next year, he said. “I don’t think the disabilities groups are going to go away on any of this,” Simpson said: “We never do.”