Rep. Jeff Landry, R-La., introduced a bill to neuter the FCC’s...
Rep. Jeff Landry, R-La., introduced a bill to neuter the FCC’s USF reform order. The Restore Effective Statistics to the Calculation of USF Expenditures (RESCUE) Act would ensure that the order on the commission’s Connect America Fund and high-cost USF…
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support would no longer have force or effect and require the FCC to prepare a report on alternatives. The bill introduced Friday said the order will “invariably” lead to the closure of many small businesses, was made in direct conflict with the USF mandate, relies on unpredictable regression models and “unfairly manipulates” federal support for carriers. The bill’s a “significant step to correct the FCC’s deeply flawed method for limiting USF support for rural telecommunications providers,” NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield said in a news release. “This bill highlights three of the most significant shortcomings of the commission’s new statistical caps on universal service support: their disregard for statutory mandates requiring that federal universal service support be predictable; their alarming inaccuracy; and their retroactive nature that penalizes prior commitments made in good faith by job creators all over this country.”