Talks Drag On for Hill's Next COVID-19 Bill Amid E-rate, Lifeline Funding Fight

Negotiations dragged on Monday on a third economic stimulus bill addressing the effects of COVID-19, with congressional lawmakers having yet to reach a bipartisan deal. A second bid for the Senate to invoke cloture on the legislative vehicle for the hoped-for compromise measure (HR-748) failed on a 49-46 vote amid continued Democratic objections to the current contours of a legislative proposal that has GOP buy-in. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was circulating her Take Responsibility for Workers and Families Act counterproposal, which includes pandemic-specific Lifeline and distance learning funding.

“This is not a juicy political opportunity,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said shortly after the Senate voted down the HR-748 cloture motion. “This is a national emergency.” The chamber rejected a similar bid Sunday on a 47-47 vote. The second Senate vote against invoking cloture happened despite a floor speech by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., saying there had been significant progress. “Democrats are trying to get things done, not making partisan speech after partisan speech,” he said. “Our goal is to reach a deal today, and we are hopeful, even confident, that we will meet that goal." Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., later told reporters talks "are stalled out," but negotiators would be "back tomorrow."

McConnell’s revised Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act would give the FCC $200 million. It would "support efforts of health care providers to address coronavirus by providing telecommunications services, information services, and devices necessary to enable the provision of telehealth services.” Pelosi’s proposal mirrors that language. McConnell's bill would also temporarily ease some federal rules in a bid to increase access to telehealth services (see 2003200070).

The FCC urged Congress to allocate $200 million for its Connected Care in-home patient monitoring telehealth pilot and $50 million for a distance learning pilot, communications sector lobbyists told us. The commission wants $2 billion to implement the recently enacted Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act (HR-4998). That bill provides funding to help U.S. communications providers remove from their networks Chinese equipment determined to threaten national security (see 2003120061). The FCC also wants $65 million to implement the Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability Act broadband mapping legislative package (S-1822). A spokesperson emailed that the commission has “been in conversations with Congressional leaders and staff to obtain funding for ... in-home devices for use by patients, teachers, and students, which the Communications Act currently does not authorize the FCC to subsidize.”

McConnell’s proposal would give CPB an additional $50 million in emergency funding, “including for fiscal stabilization grants to public telecommunications entities, with no deduction for administrative or other costs of the Corporation, to maintain programming and services and preserve small and rural stations threatened by declines in non-Federal revenues.” Pelosi wants to give CPB $300 million in additional funding for FY 2020 for the same purpose, with $50 million reserved “to support the public television system.”

McConnell’s proposal would give the Rural Utilities Service an additional $100 million for its ReConnect rural broadband funding program to “prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus.” It would give an additional $25 million to RUS’ Distance Learning, Telemedicine and Broadband Program “to prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus, domestically or internationally, for telemedicine and distance learning services in rural areas.”

Pelosi's Plan

Pelosi proposes allocating $2 billion to the FCC from a planned Emergency Connectivity Fund for schools and libraries to give students, teachers and library patrons Wi-Fi hot spots, connected devices and mobile broadband service for those devices during a declared emergency because of the pandemic. The FCC would be required to issue rules requiring schools and libraries to prioritize providing devices and mobile broadband service to students, staff and patrons “that the school or library believes do not otherwise have access to broadband internet access service.” Senate Republicans have reportedly been willing to allow up to $500 million in E-rate funding.

Pelosi wants to set up a $1 billion Emergency Broadband Connectivity Fund that the FCC would be required to use to provide “emergency” Lifeline broadband funding to households that include “at least one qualifying low-income consumer” who qualifies for Lifeline support or if the household “receives benefits from the National School Lunch Program’s free or reduced cost lunch program.” The FCC would reimburse participant ISPs with a maximum $50 a month per participating household that receives Tier I broadband service and $30 a month per household that receives Tier II service.

The language would bar ISPs and voice providers from terminating or otherwise altering service to individual customers and small businesses because of inability “to pay as a result of disruptions caused by the public health emergency.” It would bar providers from instituting late fees, data caps or fees for exceeding a data cap during the epidemic. It would make it illegal for a provider “that had functioning Wi-Fi hotspots available to subscribers in public places on the day before the beginning of such emergency period to fail to make service provided by such Wi-Fi hotspots available to the public at no cost during” the emergency. The language allows the FCC to issue waivers “for good cause.”

The proposal would make it “unlawful for any person to sell or offer for sale a good or service at a price” that’s “unconscionably excessive” and “indicates the seller is using the circumstances related to such public health emergency to increase prices unreasonably.” It would give the FTC enforcement authority and let state attorneys general and other state officials bring action in court against violators.

Pelosi’s measure includes language from the House Communications Subcommittee-cleared version of the Don’t Break Up the T-Band Act (HR-451). That bill would repeal a provision of the 2012 spectrum law that mandates public safety move off the 470-512 MHz T band by 2021. It would also address state-level 911 fee diversion.

Dueling Claims

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., disputed claims by Free Press Policy Director Matt Wood and others that he has been stonewalling a higher amount of broadband funding as part of the COVID-19 bill. “That’s not correct information,” Wicker told us. “I would be perfectly willing to include infrastructure” funding in a final measure, though “I haven’t been part of any discussions one way or the other.”

“All I’ve heard from [Capitol Hill] staff is that Wicker and other Republican negotiators were unwilling to fund broadband support” via the COVID-19 bill, Wood told us. “I know lots of ISPs have” agreed to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s call for them to keep everyone online amid the epidemic (see 2003130066), but Free Press would disagree with claims "we’ve done enough to ensure connectivity in the coming weeks and months of economic downturn.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut told us he and other Democrats continue to believe “there needs to be more robust funding” in the final bill language for telehealth and distance learning, among other matters. He’s among 20 Senate Democrats who wrote McConnell and Wicker Sunday urging them to include at least $2 billion in additional E-rate funding in a final version of the measure.

“We believe additional funding for E-Rate would greatly narrow the homework gap during the current crisis and help ensure that all students can continue to learn,” the senators said. Signers included four other Senate Commerce Democrats: Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Jacky Rosen of Nevada.

Free Press released its own legislative recommendations Monday. The group's proposal echoed some elements of Pelosi’s plan, but called for higher amounts of Lifeline and E-rate funding. It also urged $50 billion for broadband deployments. NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield urged Hill leaders Friday night to appropriate $5 billion for a “Critical Connectivity Continuity” program to help small broadband providers.