A California Public Utilities Commission proposed decision on California LifeLine would restore the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program and seven others to a list of qualifying public assistance programs for LifeLine eligibility. The proposal, released Monday, could get a vote as soon as commissioners’ Feb. 8 meeting. It also would restore an income-based criterion requiring a household income to be at most 150 percent of the federal poverty guideline for the corresponding household size. It would authorize California LifeLine to temporarily make up for loss of federal funds for participants who qualify under California eligibility criteria but not federal criteria. The CPUC proposal follows the FCC granting California an extension until April 30 to align state eligibility criteria with new federal rules (see 1710260025). In comments Monday in FCC docket 11-42, a coalition of California LifeLine eligible telecom providers (ETCs) partly supported a Sprint petition for reconsideration of the part of the FCC order that says ETCs would be responsible for ensuring subscribers are enrolled or recertified if the CPUC doesn't meet the April 30 deadline. The California ETCs supported reconsideration but disagreed with Sprint that the national verifier should be responsible. The FCC “instead should coordinate closely with California and ETCs operating in California during the coming months as California works to align its eligibility criteria with the federal Lifeline program rules, and, if necessary, grant additional short-term waivers to ensure minimal disruptions to consumers during the process,” said the coalition.

Final text of the FCC net neutrality order supports Charter’s case that federal law pre-empts New York attorney general allegations that recently acquired Time Warner Cable deceived customers about broadband speeds (see 1711280019), the cable company said. In a Monday letter to New York Supreme Court Justice Peter Sherwood, Charter said the FCC order “confirms beyond any doubt the expert federal agency's intent to preempt applications of state law that would impose inconsistent disclosure requirements on broadband providers.” Charter disagreed with the state AG office that FCC pre-emption of states asserted in net neutrality order doesn't cover speed transparency. The FCC order “expressly preempts 'any state laws that' are 'in any way inconsistent with the transparency rule' because that rule is 'carefully calibrated to reflect the information that consumers … and the Commission need[s] to ensure a functioning market for broadband Internet access services … without unduly burdening ISPs,’” Charter said. The New York AG “would improperly punish Charter for substantiating its speed claims based on the official speed-test methodology the FCC said should underlie any advertising claims," forcing Charter to change advertised speeds to be inconsistent with official measures, Charter said. "Forcing such discrepancies … would directly contravene federal policy and thwart federal objectives, thus triggering preemption under the conflict preemption doctrine,” it said.

The Supreme Court won’t review a lower court ruling that federal law doesn't pre-empt state authority to regulate non-nomadic, intrastate long-distance VoIP calls (see 1711020033). The Supreme Court denied Sprint’s petition Monday in Sprint Communications v. Richard W. Lozier 16-1417. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had affirmed a district court ruling siding with an Iowa Utilities Board decision requiring Sprint to pay intrastate access fees to Windstream for VoIP service. Sprint, Windstream and the Iowa Board didn’t comment.

A Democratic state senator in Florida introduced a broadband privacy bill that would counter congressional repeal of the FCC’s ISP privacy rules. Ahead of Florida’s legislative session opening Tuesday, state Sen. Jose Rodriquez introduced SB-1854, prohibiting ISPs from “using, disclosing, selling, or permitting external access to certain customer information” with some exceptions unless providers get opt-in consent from customers. Vermont and Wisconsin Democrats also recently introduced broadband privacy bills (see 1712270026 and 1712280005), and other state legislatures that last year sought to pass bills are expected to try again this year. Rodriquez is “following the lead of other states” in “attempting to protect consumers,” he told us Monday. The bill must still be referred to a committee that will determine next procedural steps, he said.

A California Senate committee will hear a net neutrality bill by Senate Leader Kevin DeLeón (D) at 10 a.m. PST Thursday, said an Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee agenda. The bill (SB-460) by DeLeón, running for U.S. Senate this year against Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D), would require providers to follow net neutrality rules like those rescinded last month by the FCC. If it becomes law, the bill would test the FCC order’s state pre-emption language and may end up in court (see 1801040016).

Guam Gov. Eddie Calvo (R) joined 53 other governors opting in to FirstNet, the authority and AT&T said in a Friday news release. While the deadline for most was Dec. 28, the FCC set a March 12 deadline for Guam and two other Pacific territories to decide on AT&T radio-access-network plans (see 1712150021).

The Texas Public Utility Commission won’t entertain ExteNet’s motion to rehear a case that ended with a November ruling that the PUC has no authority over wireless network nodes under the state’s 2017 small-cells law. “No commissioner has voted to add the Motion for Rehearing to an open meeting agenda,” said a Wednesday PUC notice in docket 47530. Cities, Verizon, AT&T and PUC staff had urged rejection (see 1712280017). ExteNet didn’t comment.

Missouri small-cells legislation resurrected this week after dying last year in the Senate. State Sen. Caleb Rowden (R) Wednesday introduced SB-837, which would pre-empt local wireless siting authority in the right of way. “This act prohibits an authority from prohibiting, regulating, or charging for the collocation of small wireless facilities,” the bill said. The Senate never voted on last year’s small-cells bill passed by the House (see 1704130039). New Mexico lawmakers also recently proposed small-cells legislation (see 1712180048).

Nevada Public Utilities Commission staff recommended a rulemaking on proposed changes to Nevada Administrative Code (NAC) severe outage reporting rules. CenturyLink, AT&T, Frontier Communications and the Nevada Telecommunications Association last month asked the PUC to align state rules with FCC rules taking effect Feb. 1 that will use OC3 minutes instead of DS3 minutes for reporting thresholds. A DS3 copper circuit has 45 Mbps data speeds while an OC3 fiber circuit is 155 Mbps. The wireline carriers asked for waiver if the PUC can’t align the rules by Feb. 1. PSC staff doesn’t object to a rulemaking. The state commission should address the FCC order “to avoid inconsistencies in the NAC,” Nevada PUC staff commented Wednesday in docket 17-12006. It should grant the waiver because “it would be burdensome, inefficient, and potentially costly, for providers to comply with two sets of regulatory guidelines related to reporting outages,” staff said. Cox supported aligning Nevada and FCC rules, saying the state commission should be consistent with another NAC rule requiring wireline carriers to report outages that affect 300,000 user minutes in cities with population of at least 20,000. The FCC threshold is 900,000 minutes, the cable company said.

Don’t let VTDigger appeal a district court order finding FirstNet exempt from Freedom of Information Act requests, the Commerce Department said Thursday at U.S. District Court in Burlington, Vermont. The department opposed (in Pacer) the local news organization’s request that the district court certify interlocutory appeal of its order to the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals (see 1712260024). "Plaintiffs have not satisfied any of the requirements for an interlocutory appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b),” DOC said. VTDigger can’t appeal the court’s Dec. 20 order on a motion for partial summary judgment because it’s not technically a final decision and the case isn’t exceptional, the department said. Other reasons include that the plaintiffs didn’t identify a pure question of law, the district court rulings "were plainly correct" and an appeal "would likely complicate and draw out the litigation,” DOC said.