FCC Mapping Timeline, Broadband Funding Debates Dominate Senate Hearing

Senate Commerce Committee members delivered the opening salvos in what’s expected to be a vigorous debate over what Congress should include in a broadband title in coming infrastructure legislation, during a Wednesday hearing, as expected (see 2103160001). Committee Republicans cited lingering concerns about the speed of federal work to improve broadband coverage data, after an FCC announcement that it believes improved broadband coverage data maps won’t be available until at least late 2022 (see 2102170052).

Commerce ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., was one of several Republicans who raised concerns about the FCC’s broadband mapping timeline. He contrasted acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel’s testimony last year that the broadband maps could “be updated within just a few months” with the new 2022 completion date. “I know I’ve sometimes had to eat my words” too, Wicker said. He and other Republicans pressed her to explain the disparity earlier this month (see 2103080057).

Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said she'd already spoken with Rosenworcel, "who intimated she thought it was a four-month answer on the mapping." A four-month timeline is something "that the Senate expects," and is hopefully correct "if it was, indeed, possible," Wicker said.

Wicker wondered during a dialogue with former Commissioner Mike O’Rielly whether the FCC would still be able to complete new maps “in a matter of months” if Congress mandated that the maps as its top priority. “It needs to be a priority because it determines what we do next,” said Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan. “It would be irresponsible for us” to allocate more broadband funding without a clear picture of what areas are unserved or underserved.

O’Rielly told Wicker and other Republicans he believes the FCC is facing mapping delays because Congress has in recent months mandated in COVID-19 aid measures that it set up the emergency broadband benefit program and an E-rate remote learning funding program. Lawmakers have given the FCC “new priorities in statute” via the new programs but “if the determination is made by this committee” that mapping should be “one of the highest priorities,” the commission will take heed, O’Rielly said: The FCC “does meet its deadlines,” especially given prodding from lawmakers.

It “would take too long” for Congress to specifically mandate the FCC prioritize mapping, Cantwell told us. “We’re talking about now we want the information. People say that these ISPs could actually even give us information. Hopefully, we don’t have to compel them to do that.” She’s confident Rosenworcel is making sure the FCC is moving as fast as it can to complete the maps, but lawmakers will “have a conversation after today’s hearing and see what else we want to do to get accurate data.”

Klobuchar Proposal

Commerce hasn’t set a timeline for marking up its part of the coming infrastructure package but will evaluate once it completes a planned hearing next week on surface transportation infrastructure, Cantwell told us. She acknowledged Commerce Democrats met Tuesday to discuss markup matters but “we want to talk to colleagues on both sides of the aisle” before deciding how to move forward.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., touted her Accessible, Affordable Internet for All Act (HR-1783/S-745) during the hearing, one of several proposals circulating. The measure would allocate $94 billion for broadband (see 2103110060). “We need this kind of funding for once and for all” to bridge the digital divide, she said. Klobuchar also invoked the Keeping Critical Connections Act, which would allocate $2 billion for an FCC fund to compensate ISPs with fewer than 250,000 customers for free or discounted broadband services for low-income households (see 2006240069).

S-745 cosponsor Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., also praised the measure. “This pandemic has shown broadband is an essential need” and “we need to take broadband as seriously as we do” other utilities, he said. S-745 “would be the fuel that states need to achieve the commonsense goal of universal broadband access.”

House Commerce Committee ranking member Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington said during a separate Internet Innovation Alliance virtual event she and fellow Republicans are “going to look at” HR-1783/S-745. The $94 billion proposed in HR-1783/S-745 is “a lot of money,” but it’s clear some additional funding is going to be needed to accelerate deployments, she said in response to our question. The committee plans a virtual hearing Monday (see 2103150069) on Democrats’ Leading Infrastructure for Tomorrow's America Act (HR-1848), which also includes connectivity money.

University of Virginia professor Christopher Ali strongly backed HR-1783/S-745 during the Senate Commerce hearing, noting the $80 billion included in the bill specifically for broadband deployments is “absolutely critical” for improving connectivity across the U.S. He also praised the measure’s range of other funding and policy provisions, saying the coming infrastructure legislative push is an “opportunity for us to attack all” issues causing the digital divide. Klobuchar noted the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights wrote a letter before the hearing endorsing HR-1783/S-745. The American Civil Liberties Union also wrote in support of the measure.

Quadra Partners’ Jon Wilkins said Congress still needs to invest “at least $80 billion” to provide broadband access to all unserved areas of the U.S. “and more likely somewhat higher than that.” Improvements in broadband mapping stemming from the 2020 Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability Act are likely to show there are “nearly as many unserved residential and small-business locations” now “as was the case in 2017, even accounting for new deployments funded by private or public investments in the intervening years,” he said.

Targeted Approach?

Wicker noted “most of the broadband resources Congress authorized over the past years remain unspent,” so he wants lawmakers to think about “how we can fund future broadband initiatives most effectively in order to address the remaining disparities” in connectivity access. Communications Subcommittee ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., urged Congress to “take a pragmatic approach when considering additional measures to spur broadband deployment.”

Wicker raised concerns that language in the American Rescue Plan Act (see 2103110037) authorizing $10 billion in state and local government funding specifically for broadband and other infrastructure projects doesn’t include “any safeguards to ensure proper handling of funds. For example, there are no requirements that the Treasury Department coordinate with the FCC or NTIA to prevent subsidized overbuilding, duplication of broadband benefits, and other wasteful spending.”

O'Rielly also invoked the American Rescue Plan Act’s lack of guardrails in testimony raising concerns about the path forward on infrastructure spending, as expected. “There appears to be few, if any, limitations on how this funding can be used,” he said. “That raises a host of red flags, and I’m hopeful that appropriate guardrails can be imposed later, with the recognition that they were not permitted under the reconciliation process.” New infrastructure proposals “also raise concerns that hopefully will be explored as part of the legislative process,” O’Rielly said. “The speed thresholds seem very ambitious and could contradict the goal of connecting the truly unconnected, as opposed to updating those areas with service.”

A holistic legislative approach to closing the digital divide is going to require addressing other issues, including ensuring the federal government’s broadband maps improve as mandated, McMorris Rodgers said during the IIA event: “Throwing a lot of money at it isn’t going to solve” all connectivity issues, particularly if the maps aren’t accurate. She also noted 28 broadband bills House Commerce Republicans filed in February on easing regulatory barriers (see 2102160067).

Cantwell said during the hearing she and other lawmakers plan on “discussing many things this year about the economic development opportunities in rural America” involving broadband, including a desire for more underserved areas to “receive much more connectivity that will allow” businesses and individuals to engage in “more productive business activities.” Some of the Democrats’ legislative proposals include language aimed at raising minimum broadband speeds to 100 Mbps download/upload.

Thune, Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, and Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., were among those saying any future broadband funding should prioritize unserved rural areas rather than potentially overbuilding already served areas at their expense. Midco Senior Director-Government Relations Justin Forde agreed “we’ve got to focus like a laser on those truly unserved areas and get service out to those folks as soon as possible.”

Blumenthal countered that “cities and suburbs” will also need broadband funding. “This issue affects suburban, urban as well as rural communities,” he said. “Overlooking … big cities or their suburbs is to ignore seniors and communities of color which often lack access to broadband. It also ignores the digital divide that separates those communities from others” that also lack sufficient broadband access.