Jimm Phillips, Associate Editor, covers telecommunications policymaking in Congress for Communications Daily. He joined Warren Communications News in 2012 after stints at the Washington Post and the American Independent News Network. Phillips is a Maryland native who graduated from American University. You can follow him on Twitter: @JLPhillipsDC

The House Communications Subcommittee plans a Sept. 10 hearing on NTIA’s implementation of the $42.5 billion broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program, setting up what could be a contentious start to Congress’ return next week from its month-plus August recess. The Benton Institute for Broadband & Society and five other groups, meanwhile, included BEAD among case studies in a Wednesday paper urging ISPs and local governments to strengthen their collaboration to aid the permitting process for connectivity projects.Read More >>

Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, latched on to a new Government Accountability Office report about the Universal Service Administrative Company’s handling of the Universal Service Fund to criticize the program’s spending and repeat his call for Congress to make USF subject to the federal appropriations process (see 2403060090). Democratic FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, meanwhile, told us earlier this month that Congress must prioritize a legislative fix for the USF contribution mechanism after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' recent ruling that the current funding factor is unconstitutional (see 2407240043).Read More >>

Telecom lobbyists are closely watching whether Senate backers of the Spectrum and National Security Act (S-4207) can secure a hoped-for September markup of the measure given recent efforts to move the Proper Leadership to Align Networks for Broadband Act (S-2238) as an alternative vehicle for funding the FCC’s lapsed affordable connectivity program (see 2408150039). The Senate Commerce Committee in July adopted amendments to S-2238 that attached funding for ACP and the FCC’s Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program (see 2407310048). Several observers pointed to a proxy fight about spectrum issues during Senate Commerce’s consideration of S-2238 as evidence negotiations on S-4207 are likely to remain fraught.Read More >>

House Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz of Texas and six other top GOP lawmakers urged the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Monday to strike down the FCC’s April net neutrality rules and reclassification of broadband as a Communications Act Title II service (see 2408140043). FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel separately told Rodgers, Cruz and other Republican lawmakers she remains “confident that the Commission’s rules and decisions will withstand judicial review under the [U.S.] Supreme Court’s decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and other applicable precedent.”Read More >>

Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., remains optimistic that she can get enough panel members on board with her Spectrum and National Security Act (S-4207) during the August recess to open a viable path for the stalled measure during the waning days of this Congress. Three Senate Commerce Republicans who are also senior members of the Armed Services Committee and are seen as potential converts on S-4207 told us just before the chamber recessed that they remain highly dubious about the measure.Read More >>