House Appropriations Rejects FY26 FCC Funding Bill Amendment Exploring ACP Restoration
The House Appropriations Committee voted 35-28 Wednesday night to advance the Financial Services Subcommittee’s FY 2026 funding bill, which would maintain the FCC’s annual allocation at $390.2 million and proposes reducing the FTC’s funding to $388.6 million (see 2507210064). The panel earlier voted 32-27 against an amendment from Rep. Frank Mrvan, D-Ind., to strike language in the bill’s report that directs the FCC to study alternatives to the commission’s lapsed affordable connectivity program (ACP) “to ensure that low-income Americans stay connected.”
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Mrvan’s amendment would have replaced that text with language saying that House Appropriations “encourages the FCC to prioritize efforts to identify sustainable funding solutions for the program’s restoration and provide those recommendations to Congress within 180 days of enactment.” The amendment said the panel “recognizes the crucial role that [ACP] played in closing the digital divide for tens of millions of Americans, and particularly for low-income, rural, and Tribal households.”
Mrvan said during the debate that he has “heard countless stories from my constituents about the positive impact this program had on their lives by lowering costs and expanding necessary internet access” before it lapsed last year. “Canceling this program simply left working families, seniors, veterans and rural communities stranded with higher costs and no reliable broadband access. Instead of letting this valuable program permanently disappear, we should work together to find a solution to restore the ACP and continue expanding access to affordable, high-speed internet.”
House Appropriations Financial Services ranking member Steny Hoyer, D-Md., backed Mrvan’s amendment. Subpanel Chairman Dave Joyce, R-Ohio, opposed the proposal but didn’t explain his reasoning. Hoyer noted that three of the five Republican commissioners leading his home county of St. Mary’s County, Maryland, “urged me to make sure that [ACP] was funded … because so many people in this rural county had been connected to the internet through this program.” ACP “has overwhelming bipartisan support, perhaps not in [the House], but in the country” overall, Hoyer said. “This is report language urging them to find ways and means” to resurrect the initiative.
The FY26 funding bill continues to include a set of riders that would bar the FCC from using money to enforce certain policies that originated during the Biden administration and have been in Republicans’ crosshairs, including the commission's 2024 digital discrimination order (see 2507220057). The bill report “encourages the FCC to conduct outreach to” ISPs on the potential “adverse impact” of that order (see 2509030065).