Commerce Committees in Sync on E-Rate Antideficiency Exemption
No hearings are planned to make the E-Rate antideficiency exemption permanent, but Commerce Committee staffers from both parties and chambers said Wed. their bosses have legislation to that effect on their agendas, and late-spring action is probable. The policymakers spoke at a National Coalition for Technology in Education (NCTE) panel celebrating E-Rate’s 10th anniversary. NCTE marked the event with a report rating the program’s performance and cataloging educational connectivity needs around the U.S. E-Rate reform concepts are still being formed, but all panelists spoke of ways they thought they could streamline the program.
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“While I like the job security of having to pass a new bill every year, it would be best for the program to get a permanent one passed,” said Kristin Smith, an aide to Sen. Snowe (R-Me.). In Wyo., “we have places that just can’t get connected without a program like this,” said Pete Obermueller, aide to Rep. Cubin (R-Wyo.). He said Cubin will take part in the push to make permanent the antideficiency exemption.
A permanent exemption would cut off the last remaining E-Rate opponents, said Sen. Rockefeller (D-Va.), speaking before the panel. Rockefeller called E-Rate “one of the top one or 2 two things I've done in my life, in terms of public policy,” but said the people who want to cut or end it are now saying “Okay, you got to 90%, that’s enough.” But it isn’t enough to connect 90% of schools, he said, and even those wired have “to pay the bills every month.”
E-Rates’ main opponents are “leaving or dying off” because “they've heard from their folks” that the program overwhelmingly works, said Mark Seifert, House Commerce Committee majority counsel. Committee Chmn. Dingell (D-Mich.) wants more openness in the program’s workings, and he’s “curious” about how money is awarded, Seifert said. “I imagine he’s going to satisfy that curiosity,” especially by forcing players to move information around faster, he said.
Congress will study the $2.25 billion E-Rate cap, several staffers said. But devising funding streams for USF is a bigger priority, said Barbara Pryor, an aide to Rockefeller. Colin Crowell, aide to House Telecom Subcommittee Chmn. Markey (D-Mass.), said political compromises behind that figure may be a reason to reconsider it. The $2.25 billion mark “was chosen after serious economic modeling,” he said, to heavy laughter in the room.
Staffers were mostly mum on a timeline for hearings or markups on a permanent exemption but all said a schedule is in the works. Crowell said “late spring” is an approximate target date for proceedings, but no one was more specific.
Eradicating “waste, fraud and abuse would be Snowe’s 2nd priority after a permanent exemption, Snowe said. She favors random audits of “not just E-Rate but the entire USF,” she said. Panelists agreed that tying performance evaluations to academic metrics could be dangerous. “Keep in mind it’s a telecom program,” Pryor said. USAC and the FCC, which run E-Rate, “are very good at telecom,” she said, to more laughter. Smith said the worst approach would be to say “X amount of kids learned algebra this year, therefore, E-Rate is successful.” FCC Wireline Bureau Chief Tom Navin added “performance for us is level of connectivity, is how quickly money gets there, how efficient is the process.”
Pryor echoed most panelists when she said E-Rate can’t be satisfied with success, since technology changes so fast. “I have no idea what we're going to need in 2015,” she said, “but I can tell you it’s not going to be a T1.”