The Senate Commerce Committee will try again this week to pass a measure to allow the FCC’s spectrum auctions to proceed and approve funding for the FCC’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). Last Thursday’s markup was pulled amid tensions with Republicans over amendments, Chair Maria Cantwell (D-WA) told Communications Daily.
There are still paths forward, “but all face difficulty,” according to NewStreet Research Policy Analyst Blair Levin. In addition to Cantwell’s bill, there could be an effort to try to move a compromise measure from Senators Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM), J.D. Vance (R-OH), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Peter Welch (D-VT) to the Senate floor, but he doesn’t believe that will succeed. Levin calls the chances of House passage “a significant obstacle.”
Moving towards the end of May, the ACP will run out of funds. That means the 23-plus million households now enrolled will either need to pay more for broadband or lose it altogether. That point was highlighted by House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Steny Hoyer (D-MD) during an FCC budget hearing last Wednesday, Inside Towers noted.
It’s unclear what happens now, or how media coverage of anecdotal evidence of the costs of disconnection will affect the political calculations of all sides, according to Levin. “If relatively few are disconnected, the momentum to bring back the program will lessen, though the cost of reestablishing the program will also likely lessen,” he writes in a client note. “If millions return to a state of being disconnected, the momentum to bring back a similar program will likely increase, though the cost will be larger.”
The ISPs have already made plan changes assuming new funding will not be forthcoming and have new, or in some cases renewed, offerings for low-income households, he notes. Bottom line: “We don’t think the effort is dead, but the already difficult odds get lower as time passes, the prospect of legislation reaching the Senate or House floor fades and the ISPs and recipients adjust to the new realities of no ACP funding,” writes the policy expert.
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
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