House Appropriations Still Considering FY 2020 Budget Bill With FCC, FTC Funding

would expand CPB's annual funding to $495 million (see 1904300209). House Appropriations' Financial Services budget measure would give the FTC $349.7 million for FY 2020, up more than $37 million from what President Donald Trump proposed in his March budget request and $40 million above what Congress allocated in the FY 2019 spending bill passed in February. The bill would give $339 million for the FCC. That’s on par with Congress' allocation in the FY 2019 spending bill but up from the $335.6 million the administration proposed for FY 2020. The bill includes language that would extend an exemption from the Antideficiency Act for the USF program and would continue language barring the FCC from changing rules governing the USF “regarding single connection or primary line restrictions.” House Appropriations' said “strongly encourages” the FCC to allocate USF funds “for broadband expansion in rural and economically disadvantaged areas.” The committee “believes the deployment of broadband in rural and economically disadvantaged areas is a driver of economic development, jobs, and new education opportunities and expects the FCC to prioritize efforts to ensure that rural areas and other unserved areas have service that is reasonably comparable to urban areas.” Appropriations said it's “concerned about the quality of broadband availability information used by the FCC to allocate USF funding” and “directs the FCC to improve the quality of its broadband maps to ensure that unserved areas are accurately identified and to report to the Committee within 180 days of enactment of this Act the steps the FCC has taken to improve mapping quality and the impact of those steps.” Its Financial Services Subcommittee advanced the budget bill last week (see 1906040064).