Alaska USF Sunset Could Come Sooner Than Expected

Alaska officials are making arrangements for the state USF’s expected demise June 30. “There is still a lot of preparation and research to be completed,” said Alaska Universal Service Administrative Co. (AUSAC) Agent Keegan Bernier at a Regulatory Commission of Alaska meeting livestreamed Wednesday. The RCA seeks written comments by May 5 on proposed regulatory revisions related to AUSF, said Chair Keith Kurber.

The Alaska commission tried to extend the sunset until June 30, 2026, in a February order in docket R-21-001 (see 2302080018). But the Department of Law rejected that decision in a March 24 memo. “Our review raises concerns that” a 2019 Alaska law barring the RCA from designating local exchange carriers or long-distance telcos as carriers of last resort “makes the commission's simple regulatory extension of the ‘sunset’ date for the AUSF legally unsustainable without other regulations changes,” wrote Rebecca Polizzotto, the department’s regulations attorney. “In addition, a procedural due process defect arises from the commission's vote to accept one late public comment, submitted after the deadline in the public notice, but not other late comments.”

“Short of some miraculous intervention,” the AUSF program will be gone June 30, said Commissioner Robert Pickett. He supported a suggestion by Bernier to hold a technical workshop next Wednesday in conjunction with the RCA’s planned meeting on the imminent sunset. RCA Assistant Attorney General Stuart Goering said a workshop is fine if parties don’t comment on the public notice Kurber mentioned.

The RCA proposes repealing AUSF rules in Title 3 of the Alaska Administrative Code, including sections 53.300 to 53.399, said the notice released Wednesday. "The intended effect of this repeal is to remove inapplicable language from the Alaska Administrative Code."

AUSAC plans to present at next week's RCA meeting on the administrative process for the sunset, “including eventual dissolution of AUSAC, and to seek clarification on some aspects of the regulation changes,” Bernier said. “We see the importance of terminating this fund in an orderly and efficient fashion.” AUSAC plans to notify fund recipients and contributors, but it recommends the RCA make clear to companies that remittance payments remain required “and the date when remittances are no longer required.”

AUSAC began evaluating and researching its possible dissolution in January, Bernier said. The AUSAC board met March 31 to plan for next week’s RCA meeting, she said. “AUSAC expected to file information in late April, but our timeline -- and it appears yours as well -- has moved up.” The company is “researching various business, insurance and financial requirements and [is] reviewing internal procedures essential to the fund operation until closure. AUSAC is evaluating different scenarios on the timeline for the windup of the fund and the termination of administrative operations."

The Alaska Exchange Carriers Association board is reviewing the sunset’s effect on AECA operations and intrastate access charges, including “financial impacts on AECA’s cost recovery mechanism and the pass through of access charge revenues to its member companies,” said President Steve Kramer. AECA administers AUSF on a contract basis with AUSF, but the “relationship between access charges and the AUSF is far more intertwined than just AECA’s administrative service contract,” he said.

“A lot more could have been done,” said Goering: The commission could have put provisions in its 2018 order setting the 2023 sunset “to lay out precisely how the transition will occur.” He said it’s too late to adopt them now.

The Alaska Remote Carrier Coalition "is concerned with the sunset of AUSF as that support payment is important, especially in the off-the-road network areas of Alaska," emailed VantagePoint Vice President-Public Policy Jeff Smith, speaking for the coalition. "We are reviewing next steps for our companies and their impacted customers."