FCC Releases Lengthy Lifeline Order; Dissenting Republicans Detail Objections

service and updates program administration. It creates minimum service standards for broadband and mobile voice services while allowing "an exception in areas where fixed broadband providers do not meet the minimum standards." The FCC mandated a "five-and-one-half-year transition, during which we will gradually increase mobile voice and data requirements and gradually decrease voice support levels." It shifts responsibility for verifying consumer Lifeline eligibility from carriers to a national entity, creates a streamlined national Lifeline broadband provider designation process and requires participating providers to make Wi-Fi functionality available when providing devices for Lifeline use. The FCC established a $2.25 billion annual Lifeline budget that can be adjusted if spending reaches 90 percent of that level. Democratic commissioners issued their statements March 31 but the full statements of the dissenting Republicans weren't available until Wednesday's order. "I cannot support this Order," said Commissioner Ajit Pai in a 16-page statement. "It is not fiscally responsible. It does not clean up the waste, fraud, and abuse. And it consigns Lifeline consumers to second-class broadband services for the foreseeable future. On top of this, the Order does not comply with federal law." Pai said that the agency did "practically nothing" to fix Lifeline's "fiscal nightmare." He said the order didn't set a "meaningful," enforceable budget, doesn't target funding to households lacking broadband, doesn't curb excessive spending on urban tribal lands and doesn't address loopholes that invite carrier abuse, but does "cut state commissions out of the Lifeline designation process." He said Chairman Tom Wheeler worked to unwind a budget compromise between Pai and Commissioners Mike O'Rielly and Mignon Clyburn. O'Rielly said the most disappointing aspect was that the budget deal was "attacked for all the wrong reasons." The compromise budget "would not have harmed the program or recipients" but instead would have allowed support to reach "all eligible households that lack sufficient broadband while staying within reasonable fiscal limits," he said, noting he would have backed a $2 billion cap. Instead, the order adopted a "phony" budget mechanism, he said.