Pai Pledges Rural Healthcare Fix in Bid to End Sullivan's Carr Hold; Manchin Adds Block
Political maneuvering to allow Senate confirmation of FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr to a full five-year term appeared to take that process one step forward and one step back, with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., placing his own hold on the nominee and FCC Chairman Ajit Pai working to end an existing hold from Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska. Pai committed in letters released Friday to a series of steps to resolve USF Rural Health Care Program concerns that led Sullivan to place the hold earlier this year (see 1809130059). Manchin placed his own hold Thursday on Carr, citing the FCC’s decision this month to suspend the window for responding to Mobility Fund Phase II challenges while the agency investigates whether top wireless carriers submitted incorrect broadband coverage maps in violation of MF-II rules (see 1812070048).
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“I share your views on [RHCP’s] importance for patients in Alaska and throughout rural America, and I too want to ensure that it works for health care providers, service providers, and taxpayers alike,” Pai wrote Sullivan and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who's supporting Sullivan’s hold. “I am happy to commit to the three steps you and I discussed during” a mid-November meeting that Sullivan said showed progress in the dispute (see 1811160043). “I plan to move forward with an order adopting new rules for [RHCP] in 2019, with a target of doing so in the first half of the year,” Pai said. “To aid that work, I have asked staff to immediately release a public notice to refresh the record, so that the Commission can learn from the lessons of recent months.”
Staff will draft a public notice for release next month “that reminds participants of the rules of the program, including how to calculate rural rates and the protections for rural health care providers participating in the program,” Pai said. He also pledged to ensure “the review of requests from [RHCP] participants seeking relief before the Commission will be as expeditious as possible given staff resources.” Sullivan has said he has seen further progress in his work with the FCC to resolve his RHCP concerns, though he’s not fully committed to lifting his hold on Carr (see 1812130057).
“I have been saying since day one” that the FCC’s broadband maps “were inaccurate,” but “the answer is not to put the Mobility Fund on an indefinite hold that prevents states like West Virginia from receiving the funding they desperately need to deploy mobile broadband,” Manchin said in a statement. If Pai “feels he needs to put the brakes on this program at this stage of the game, I need to put the brakes” on Carr’s reconfirmation until the chairman “can show me where we’re supposed to go from here.” Manchin challenged the MF-II map in late November (see 1811280059).
Manchin’s hold on Carr, like the one from Sullivan, “is also effectively a hold” on Democratic FCC nominee Geoffrey Starks because Senate Commerce Committee leaders plan to advance the two nominees as a pair, a committee spokesperson emailed. “We believe the most positive outcome would be to see the confirmation of both nominees.” The FCC didn’t comment Friday on Manchin’s hold.