Alaska Commission Makes Emergency USF Extension Permanent

The Regulatory Commission of Alaska unanimously voted at a hybrid meeting Wednesday to make permanent an emergency extension of the state’s universal service program. The Alaska USF sunset date is now June 30, 2026. The emergency regulations otherwise would have ended Oct. 28.

Allowing the state's USF program to sunset this year would have constituted “a threat to public peace, health, safety and general welfare” and the program “needed immediate action,” said Commissioner Robert Pickett at Wednesday’s meeting. The vote appeared to put to rest the RCA’s rushed process to extend the AUSF before the sunset -- originally set for June 30, 2023 -- and before administrative deadlines made saving the program impossible (see 2305100061).

“This has been a rather challenging and somewhat contentious docket that I think has some fairly important consequences,” Pickett said. “This was not a sure deal. It could have gone haywire pretty easily.” Pickett said changes to the RCA's authority in 2019 and the move toward broadband have increasingly meant the RCA is "regulated out" of participation in telecom issues. The RCA was told in August 2022 that a plan to extend the sunset needed to be finished by last October to prevent the USF from sunsetting (see 2208240061).

Industry and public interest groups widely supported the extension, and it was recommended in a memo from Administrative Law Judge Laura Barson. Since the emergency rules took effect before the original sunset date, there has been no interruption in service, said the memo.

The permanent regulations are a revised version of the emergency ones, changed to include additions recommended by the Alaska Universal Service Administrative Company (AUSAC), which oversees the AUSF. The changes include language for a de minimis exception for public utilities that would owe AUSF less than $100 for a yearly payment, and an administrative change to the way essential network support for local exchange carriers is calculated.

With the vote to make the extension permanent, the emergency regulations will move into "an administrative period" while the permanent extension takes effect, said RCA Chairman Keith Kurber. The final version of the adopted regulations will be sent to the Alaska Department of Law within the next 10 days, Barson told the RCA. Pickett and attorneys familiar with the regulations have said a further legislative solution will likely be necessary in the long term. “I'm sure there's reduced heart rate in the room,” said Kurber after the vote.