More Votes on GOP Broadband Bill Changes Unlikely

Senate Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., and Commerce Committee ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., believe it’s unlikely the chamber will hold votes on more amendments aimed at striking or paring back language in the $65 billion broadband section of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act filed as a substitute amendment to shell bill HR-3684 (see 2108020061), they told us Wednesday. Senators voted 43-55 Wednesday against one such amendment from Wicker.

Wicker saw “no” chance there will be floor votes on seven other of his amendments that would remove or replace sections of the broadband title. His proposals include one to add language barring federal entities from using the broadband title “to regulate the rates charged.” The Wicker amendment the Senate voted down Wednesday would have struck language from HR-3684 exempting the NTIA administrator from having to follow some Administrative Procedure Act requirements when making decisions on the proposed $42.5 billion broadband equity, access and deployment grants.

Wicker said on the Senate floor he believes the proposed NTIA program needs to be subject to APA guidelines because it would mean expected rules go through the normal notice-and-comment process. The FCC is unlikely to have a required update of its broadband connectivity maps ready until spring 2022, so “we have time … to get public input, to have people who already experienced” setting up the controversial NTIA broadband technology opportunities program during the Obama administration “come to the agency and say, ‘You might want to do it this way or you might want to avoid doing it that way,’” Wicker said. “I don’t want this program to fall short” like BTOP did.

“It’ll be hard to get” votes on amendments “that have a chance of succeeding, given where” members of the bipartisan group that wrote the HR-3684 substitute are “positioned on” allowing changes, Thune told us. The five Republicans who voted against Wicker’s amendment -- Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rob Portman of Ohio and Mitt Romney of Utah -- are members of the bipartisan group. Senate GOP officials described those five Republican senators as having a pact with Democratic members of the bipartisan group not to support any amendment that could pass a floor vote but would torpedo the existing language.

Some additional broadband amendments “that have broad bipartisan support” could get floor votes, but it’s “unlikely” any more partisan proposals will get through, said Thune, who's the Communications Subcommittee's lead Republican. The chamber voted 95-1 on Monday (see 2108030071) to attach language from his Telecommunications Skilled Workforce Act (S-163). Thune is “looking at the overall bill” and hasn’t “made any final decisions” about whether he will support invoking cloture on an amended S-3684.

Other Senate Republicans are also seeking to remove or revise parts of the broadband title, including Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. She proposes barring some municipal broadband providers from receiving the NTIA grants and removing language requiring the FCC to issue rules forcing ISPs to display broadband consumer labels like the ones released in 2016 under then-Chairman Tom Wheeler (see 1604040046).

Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., told us she and other Democrats will likely uniformly oppose any bid to further weaken the bipartisan measure’s consumer protections, pricing transparency and anti-digital redlining language. Cantwell is pleased with the bipartisan measure’s increased funding for NTIA middle-mile grants but believes the group “didn’t quite get” to the type of broadband affordability funding and policy language that she and some other Democrats were seeking. “We’ll have to figure out other avenues to do that,” she said. Cantwell didn’t rule out trying to further address affordability via a coming budget reconciliation package.

Senate Communications Chairman Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., is pursuing an amendment to strengthen what he considers insufficient anti-redlining language. The existing text “gives a path forward for companies to not connect people,” he told us. The proposal would direct an FCC rulemaking to ban digital discrimination but requires the commission to take “into account the issues of technical and economic feasibility.” That’s effectively a loophole that companies can exploit to “not connect poor people,” Lujan said. His revision would require rules to be “technically feasible” and would require the commission to identify “what constitutes digital redlining.”

The Senate Appropriations Committee, meanwhile, voted 25-5 to advance its version of the FY 2022 Agriculture Department funding bill, which would allocate $700 million to the ReConnect rural broadband program. The House passed an FY 2022 appropriations minibus last month (HR-4502) that includes more than $907 million for USDA rural broadband programs (see 2107290061).