Senate Commerce Committee Democrats and Republicans who back allocating an additional $3.08 billion for the FCC’s Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program and stopgap funding for the commission’s ailing affordable connectivity program used a Thursday spectrum-focused hearing (see 2403210063) to vent about the Hill's failure thus far to address either priority. The Further Consolidated Appropriations Act FY 2024 minibus spending bill, which congressional leaders released early Thursday morning as an amendment to legislative vehicle HR-2882, as expected (see 2403190062) includes neither ACP nor rip-and-replace funding.
Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., told us Thursday she hopes to soon file legislation on a five-year renewal of the FCC’s lapsed spectrum auction authority without language authorizing sales of specific bands, despite Republican criticism during a Thursday hearing about omitting an airwaves pipeline. Senate Commerce ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Communications Subcommittee ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., emphasized their 2024 Spectrum Pipeline Act (S-3909) as an antidote to concerns about the Biden spectrum strategy, as expected (see 2403200001). The hearing also revealed clear divisions among panel Republicans about continuing to explore 5G use of the 3.1-3.45 GHz band, which has drawn opposition from DOD and top Capitol Hill allies (see 2403200061).
A Thursday Senate Commerce Committee hearing is likely to highlight stark differences between panel leaders’ competing proposals for a spectrum legislative package, including whether it should mandate sales of specific bands before NTIA completes studies of those frequencies in keeping with the Biden administration’s national spectrum strategy (see 2403120006). Lawmakers’ apparent failure to reach a deal allocating additional money for the FCC’s affordable connectivity program and Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program (see 2403190062) as part of a FY 2024 still-unreleased “minibus” spending package also ratchets up the pressure for a spectrum bill to use future auction revenue to pay for multiple telecom priorities, officials and lobbyists told us.
The Further Consolidated Appropriations Act FY 2024 minibus spending bill released early Thursday morning doesn't include stopgap funding for the FCC's affordable connectivity program or the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program, as expected. The measure allocates almost $390.2 million to the FCC for FY24 and $425.7 million to the FTC. It also includes $535 million for CPB in FY 2026, turning back House Appropriations Committee Republicans' attempt to end that entity's advance funding.
Stopgap funding for the FCC’s affordable connectivity program is not included in an FY 2024 appropriations “minibus” package Congress is aiming to approve this week, several lobbyists told us Tuesday. The omission also makes it doubtful congressional leaders attached an additional $3.08 billion for the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program, lobbyists said. Advocates of both programs were pushing for their funding in the minibus (see 2403150063) as recently as last weekend. The White House and Capitol Hill reached a deal on FY24 funding for the FCC and most other agencies over the weekend; they reached a final agreement on the bill Monday night.
Vexus Fiber will pay $100,000 for violating the FCC's affordable connectivity program rules. An Enforcement Bureau order Friday said Vexus admitted it violated the program's rule prohibiting downselling broadband services to ACP-eligible households by "preventing customers from applying the ACP benefit to any residential broadband internet access service plan they selected."
The Senate Commerce Committee confirmed plans Friday for a March 21 spectrum policy-focused hearing, as expected (see 2403140044). Ahead of the hearing, panel chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., was eyeing a set of slimmed-down spectrum legislative proposals the Congressional Budget Office evaluated at her request, including a potential five-to-seven-year reauthorization of the FCC’s auction authority (see 2403140066). Cantwell was doubtful Thursday those proposals would be ready for inclusion in a coming FY 2024 “minibus” appropriations package to provide additional money for the FCC’s affordable connectivity program and Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program (see 2403150063). The March 21 hearing “will focus on how a coordinated and comprehensive approach to domestic spectrum policy is critical to U.S. national security,” Senate Commerce said. “A unified approach will enable the [U.S.] to lead internationally, which will help counter threats like those from Huawei and ZTE.” Renewing the FCC’s mandate, “engaging in fact-based spectrum decision-making, and investing in dynamic spectrum sharing and other technologies will ensure the [U.S.] leads in spectrum use policy that protects the nation’s critical national security and economic competitiveness missions,” the panel said. Open Radio Access Network Coalition Executive Director Diane Rinaldo, a former acting NTIA administrator, is among those set to testify. Also on the docket: WifiForward Executive Director Mary Brown; Hudson Institute Center for the Economics of the Internet Director Harold Furchtgott-Roth, a Republican former FCC commissioner; University of Notre Dame professor Monisha Ghosh; and Center for Strategic Studies senior fellow Clete Johnson. The hearing will begin at 10 a.m. in 253 Russell. CTIA praised plans for the hearing. The group is “committed to working with Congress to incorporate the key missing piece to successful legislation and that is the inclusion of specific targets for auctioned spectrum. Every prior multi-year extension of FCC authority -- in 1997, 2006 and 2012 -- included specific amounts of spectrum for auction that now power our world-leading networks. Failing to include specific direction now risks setting us back half a decade or more and foreclosing critical opportunities to make new 5G spectrum available, which is critical to our national and economic security.”
Advocates of additional federal funding for the FCC’s affordable connectivity program and Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program were closely monitoring congressional negotiations Friday in hopes appropriators would reach a deal addressing both priorities as part of a second tranche of FY 2024 spending bills lawmakers want approved before midnight March 22. Rip-and-replace supporters voiced strong optimism that the next “minibus” package would include $3.08 billion to fully fund that program. ACP backers were, at least privately, growing less hopeful of a deal including their priority.
Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., told us she's considering a clean FCC reauthorization bill that could pay for some of congressional leaders’ telecom priorities but wouldn’t necessarily mandate that the commission begin sales of specific frequencies. Senate Commerce plans a March 21 hearing on that and other spectrum policy issues, Cantwell told us Thursday ahead of a formal panel announcement. Cantwell's proposal would be in line with her pursuit of a slimmed-down measure (see 2403110066) drawing some elements of the stalled House Commerce Committee-cleared Spectrum Auction Reauthorization Act (HR-3565).
FCC commissioners voted 3-2 Thursday, over dissents by Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington, to approve the agency's Telecom Act Section 706 report to Congress. The report concluded that broadband isn't deployed in a "reasonable and timely fashion," with about 24 million Americans lacking access to speeds of at least 100/20 Mbps. The two Republicans also dissented at the commissioners' open meeting on a proposed requirement that cable and satellite TV multichannel programming distributors display prominently the aggregate cost of video programming in ads and customer bills.