No Hill Consensus on Next ACP Funding Steps; Senate Commerce June 12 Markup Likely

Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., told us she prefers moving ahead with her S-4207 as a vehicle for allocating stopgap ACP money. S-4207 proposes lending the FCC $7 billion for ACP and $3.08 billion to fully pay for the FCC’s Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program. The measure calls for the FCC to pay back the loan using revenue from future spectrum auctions. Senate Commerce twice yanked S-4207 from consideration at meetings last month amid opposition from panel Republicans (see 2405160066).

Senate Commerce will probably mark up S-4207 June 12, Cantwell told us. She has not committed to changes in the measure beyond revisions she unveiled ahead of the panel’s postponed May 16 markup (see 2405100046). She predicted “a whole bunch of amendments” filed ahead of the postponed markups will likely come up again. Cantwell said “we support” amending S-4207 with some elements of the pro-ACP amendment Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., unsuccessfully tried to include in the FAA Reauthorization Act (see 2405090068). Lujan subsequently led filing the proposal as a stand-alone bill (S-4317).

Cantwell signaled openness for S-4207 amendments that would assure Senate Armed Services Committee members that the measure won’t provide a loophole allowing FCC sales of 3.1-3.45 GHz band licenses. That issue stymied progress last year (see 2306120058) on the House Commerce Committee-cleared Spectrum Auction Reauthorization Act (HR-3565). “We think clarity helps,” Cantwell said. A 3.1-3.45 GHz rider could help sway several Senate Armed Services Republicans who are part of the Commerce panel, including Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska, lobbyists told us.

Lujan is “concerned that I’ve not seen anything scheduled” on moving S-4317 despite commitments Senate leaders made early in May. S-4317 would pair $6 billion in stopgap ACP funding with rules changes, including narrowing ACP's eligibility parameters (see 2405070083). “I and others who are part of this initiative are continuing to push” for S-4317 and believe there is momentum behind restoring ACP, Lujan told us. He cited renewed support from the Biden administration, which sought $6 billion for ACP in October (see 2310250075). “I believe there to be willingness” in both chambers for supporting ACP, but “it's a matter of getting it scheduled,” Lujan said.

S-4317 lead Republican co-sponsor J.D. Vance of Ohio is also still advocating for ACP stopgap funding. Vance told us ACP falls outside a pledge he and eight other GOP senators made that opposes increasing "non-security-related funding” for Biden administration initiatives. The GOP pledge is a reaction to a New York City jury finding former President Donald Trump guilty last week on 34 counts of falsifying business records. Vance and the other Senate Republicans who signed the pledge believe the charges were politically motivated. ACP “is a pre-existing program that we just want to get reauthorized, so I don’t include it” among matters Republicans should oppose addressing this year, Vance said.

House Democrats’ direction on ACP awaits a decision from Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, said Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y. She spearheaded the ACP Extension Act (HR-6929), which proposes $7 billion for ACP (see 2401100056). Jeffries “is meeting with the ISPs” and “I’m still awaiting a signal” from him on which direction to go, Clarke told us. An unexecuted discharge petition that forces a House vote on HR-6929 (see 2404100075) “is ready to go” depending on what comes out of Jeffries’ ISP meetings and subsequent conversations with Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. She also noted her sense that S-4317 is “gaining traction,” so if “Lujan is able to get that passed on the Senate floor, then I think we have a good shot at doing it in the House as well.”

House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio, and Senate Communications ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., indicated their focus remains addressing ACP via a bicameral working group's upcoming Universal Service Fund revamp proposal. Latta told us Thune and other Republicans pushed for the group to delay unveiling the proposal until after ACP funding was exhausted rather than releasing it before May's end, as previously suggested (see 2404170066). “Now we're going to have to kind of wait” until there’s a better “sense of what they are talking about” doing with the proposal, Latta said. “We’re making progress and there are a lot of good reform ideas” that the USF working group intends to incorporate into a final proposal, Thune told us.