Lawmakers, Advocates Eye Next Steps on ACP Money After Cantwell Spectrum Bill Stalls

Supporters of the FCC's expired affordable connectivity program acknowledge the Senate Commerce Committee’s impasse (see 2406180067) on the Spectrum and National Security Act (S-4207) may spur a reexamination of alternatives for addressing broadband pricing. This realization comes amid weakening odds that Congress can address ACP funding via a broader package aimed at restoring the FCC's lapsed airwaves sales authority. Lawmakers continue insisting a legislative solution is possible this year even though Senate Commerce’s cancellation of its planned Tuesday markup of S-4207 (see 2406170066) was its fourth pulling of the measure since early May. Other stakeholders are urging a shift to emphasizing nonlegislative solutions.

S-4207 lead sponsor and Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., believes the best path to restoring ACP remains coupling it with a spectrum legislative package, despite the latest setback in moving her bill. S-4207 would allocate ACP $7 billion for FY 2024. Republicans were seeking a series of controversial amendments to S-4207 directed at significantly scaling back ACP beyond what Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., sought in a revamp proposal during the negotiations process. “We're just going to have to keep pushing people to get to the table and get the discussion” moving again, Cantwell told reporters this week.

New Street’s Blair Levin invoked The Princess Bride, pronouncing a broad spectrum package this year as “mostly dead” now that S-4207 appears stalled. “We don’t have a Miracle Max arriving on the scene” to revive negotiations, he told us. “No one has figured out how to get 60 votes in the Senate” on a spectrum measure “that will satisfy all of the stakeholders enough to move forward.” The Republicans’ amendments to S-4207 “demonstrated the difficulty of getting anything done” on programs like ACP “during an election year,” said Levin, who’s also a Brookings Institution senior fellow.

The S-4207 impasse shows it’s “starting to look more and more certain that a congressional doorway for funding of ACP is closing for this year,” Greg Guice, Affordable Broadband Campaign board chair, said in an interview. “There will be ongoing efforts to try to get” the ACP Extension Act (HR-6929/S-3565) through Congress to appropriate $7 billion to the expired program, but supporters “really need to start exploring all options for what we can do to ensure that low-income families stay connected” absent a legislative deal.

Guice suggested “looking at the Universal Service Fund to maybe step up and do more there with the Lifeline program,” though that would likely require “covering the gap” between the 23 million households that participated in ACP and the approximately 700,000 qualifying for Lifeline. Other lawyers and officials said at least one ACP backer plans to file a petition for reconsideration challenging the FCC's granting ISPs forbearance in the net neutrality order from Communications Act Section 254(d) USF contribution requirements. Many consumer groups raised concerns about that issue ahead of the net neutrality order’s adoption (see 2404190043).

Legislative Moves

ACP backers should “talk about the issues and why” ACP is “so important to the U.S. consumer,” Cantwell told reporters. “We're in this era of high inflation” in which broadband service “is one of the most expensive things there is.” Nobody “in America has empathy for their broadband provider,” she said: “They want to know why” ISPs are stopping legislation "that would continue an essential affordability program for Americans to have access when we learned … how critical it was” during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., told us he’s advocating for Cantwell and other chamber leaders to advance his Secure and Affordable Broadband Extension Act (S-4317) “if, in fact, there’s not a solution” on a spectrum package “that will be timely.” That measure mirrors an amendment Lujan and Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, unsuccessfully sought to attach to the FAA reauthorization law in early May (see 2405100046). It would have allocated $6 billion to ACP and revamped elements of it, including eligibility rules. The proposal would authorize an FCC sale of spectrum on the 12.7-13.25 GHz band to offset the spending.

The “focus has been on” moving S-4207, but “there’s nothing preventing [S-4317] from going to the floor” instead, Lujan said Thursday. S-4317 enjoyed “bipartisan support” when it was up for debate as an FAA amendment and “that support has only grown since,” he added. ACP funding “is not an issue that people are unaware of” and lawmakers across the political spectrum “have debated it on many different occasions.”

HR-6929/S-3565 lead sponsors Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., and Peter Welch, D-Vt., acknowledged uncertainty about next steps for ACP absent its inclusion in a larger package. Welch believes the barrier to allocating more ACP money via stand-alone legislation remains establishing a sustainable funding source. “It’s not 100% clear” what the best pathway should be even after meeting with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Clarke told us. “We’re still looking at" bringing up an unexecuted discharge petition to force a House floor vote on HR-6929 (H Res. 1119) as one alternative.