E-rate Hot Spots Order's Stakeholders See CRA Stall on Hill Ahead of Likely FCC Repeal
Upcoming FCC action to undo its July 2024 order allowing E-rate recipients to use funding for off-premises Wi-Fi hot spots is a clear sign that House leaders have lost interest in advancing a Senate-passed Congressional Review Act resolution of disapproval (S.J.Res. 7) against that order, supporters and opponents told us. The FCC is likely to approve next week two proposals to cancel both the off-premises hot spot order and another to fund Wi-Fi on school buses (see 2509030064). The House Commerce Committee's Republican leaders still haven't taken a position on S.J.Res. 7, which the Senate passed more than four months ago. Supporters argue that moving the CRA measure would prevent a future majority-Democratic FCC from resurrecting the Wi-Fi rules for schools and libraries in their current form.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
S.J.Res. 7 lead sponsor and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told us he’s still urging “the House to take [the measure] up and pass it” but acknowledged that he hasn’t gotten “any firm commitments” from House GOP leaders. “I’m glad the FCC is moving on an independent track, [but] a CRA is a preferable avenue for doing it because one consequence [would be] a permanent prohibition on the FCC coming back in a future administration and reinstating the same or substantially similar policy,” Cruz said.
Rep. Russ Fulcher, R-Idaho, lead sponsor of S.J.Res. 7's House companion (H.J.Res. 33), told us earlier this month that it was “news to me” when asked about FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s bid to overturn the hot spots order. “I would like to communicate with the FCC and see if they’re serious about” rolling back the order “and take it from there,” Fulcher said. Lobbyists told us House GOP leaders would be more likely to bring up S.J.Res. 7 than H.J.Res. 33, given that the Senate already passed its version in May on a 50-38 party-line vote (see 2505080055).
House Commerce Committee leaders from both parties indicated in interviews that S.J.Res. 7 hasn’t been a top priority in recent months, during which work on the budget reconciliation package, the 2025 Rescissions Act and the FY 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (S-2296) took precedence.
“I haven’t even thought about” whether the House should move on S.J.Res. 7, said House Commerce Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., before referring us to the panel Republicans’ press office. A committee GOP spokesperson emphasized that House leaders have the ultimate say on whether a CRA measure comes to the floor and redirected us to their offices. Spokespeople for Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise, both R-La., didn’t immediately comment.
'Not a Priority' Now
House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Doris Matsui, D-Calif., said she still needs to examine “what the implications” of S.J.Res. 7 would be for future FCC action on hot spots. “We’ve got so many things that keep coming up” in communications policy that end up dominating discussions, Matsui said. “Either way, it’s not good” if Republicans succeed in undoing the policy.
Senate Communications Subcommittee ranking member Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., said any House lawmakers who “want to make it harder for their constituents and students going to school to connect to the internet should have to go face them in person.” He asked why the FCC exists if commissioners choose “to make it harder for people to get connected to the internet.” Lujan also questioned “why this has become a partisan issue, [given that] several of my Republican colleagues were all co-sponsors of getting Wi-Fi on school buses,” dating back to his 2018 Bus Act. The 2020 Emergency Educational Connections Act, which proposed expanding E-rate funding to pay for hot spots, drew only Democratic support (see 2004300058).
James Erwin, executive director of the Americans for Tax Reform’s Digital Liberty project, told us it’s clear that momentum for House action on S.J.Res. 7 has “stalled. It’s not a priority on the [House] agenda at the moment, and that’s why the FCC is moving forward” on its own. He said he's “a bit surprised” that House leaders haven’t tried to push for a vote on S.J.Res. 7 because Senate Republicans unanimously backed the measure.
But some House Republicans are concerned that S.J.Res. 7 “would go too far in preventing future action that they might agree with,” Erwin said: Johnson and Scalise are becoming less willing to press for votes on lower-priority bills “if there isn’t consensus yet” among Republicans, since they have a narrow House majority.
Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition Executive Director Joey Wender argued that FCC action on the E-rate items will “take some of the wind out of the CRA’s sails [because] there will be much less reason for Congress to act.” SHLB was among the groups that jointly urged FCC commissioners earlier this week against undoing the E-rate orders (see 2509240037).
Cruz and others who “pushed [S.J.Res. 7] through the Senate had wanted to move it through the House, and it has not moved” yet, Wender said. Carr “is now stepping in.” Another lobbyist advocating against undoing the E-rate orders argued that Carr’s intervention is effectively a sign of “surrender” by GOP leaders, who weren’t confident they had enough votes to pass S.J.Res. 7 through the House.