A Senate investigation of the Lifeline program is being explored...
A Senate investigation of the Lifeline program is being explored by Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. Her Contracting Oversight Subcommittee “is taking preliminary steps to investigate” the Universal Service Fund low-income program but hasn’t opened a formal investigation yet, a McCaskill…
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spokesman told us Tuesday. McCaskill is also “seeking a Government Accountability Office review and pursuing expanded reviews by the FCC Inspector General,” the senator wrote in a Dec. 9 letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. McCaskill acknowledged that the FCC plans to soon issue a rule to tighten oversight of the program. But the pending order may not “fully address the scope of fraud, waste and abuse that may be occurring in Lifeline,” she wrote. McCaskill asked the FCC to provide information about the growth in the number of carriers participating in Lifeline since it was expanded to wireless, the amount of duplications and number of ineligible customers discovered by the FCC in the last three years, the number and extent of audits conducted by the FCC and internal processes the FCC has implemented to administer Lifeline and prevent problems.