Universal Service Joint Board State Members Still Waiting for FCC

The NARUC board passed telecom resolutions Wednesday on the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) and extending FCC spectrum auction authority. The RDOF resolution recommends a referral to the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service, but that body’s state members told us at NARUC’s meeting this week the joint board hasn’t met in several years. The FCC’s continuing lack of five commissioners could be a big reason, they said.

The Telecom Committee voted unanimously to approve both NARUC resolutions Monday (see 2302130050). One addresses what to do in situations where the FCC rejected an RDOF bidder’s long-form application, as the agency did with SpaceX’s Starlink and LTD Broadband. It would urge the FCC to refer the matter to the USF joint board to recommend rules and procedures to keep that funding in the areas where the provider was rejected. The second resolution would urge Congress to extend the FCC’s auction authority beyond March and divert some proceeds to fund next-generation 911 (NG-911) and the FCC’s Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program.

NARUC President Michael Caron had no FCC meetings scheduled while state commissioners were in Washington this week, he said in an interview Monday. “One of our problems in interacting with the FCC” is it doesn’t have a full complement of commissioners, said Caron, a Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority commissioner. The FCC appointed Caron to the USF joint board in late 2020 (see 2012150001). The commissioner recalled some meet-and-greet activities after he joined but said the group hasn’t formally met and there has been no word of an upcoming meeting.

The joint board hasn’t met for five or six years, said South Dakota Public Service Commissioner Chris Nelson (R), the board’s state chair, in a Tuesday interview. “The commission has to have an issue to be referred, and they have to have some … consensus among the commission to refer an issue, and either one or both has been lacking at this point.” Not having five FCC commissioners probably makes it harder, he said. The Senate Commerce Committee had a contentious confirmation hearing Tuesday for FCC nominee Gigi Sohn (see 2302140077).

State joint board members urged reconvening the group after President Joe Biden took office (see 2111020047). Republican Mike O’Rielly slammed the joint board as dysfunctional in 2020 when he was an FCC commissioner (see 2011100060). The FCC didn’t comment Wednesday on the joint board’s status.

Caron and Nelson raised some concerns about federal programs sending infrastructure money to the states. The federal government “threw a lot of money at us,” said Caron. “Good problem to have, but in some cases a problem because agencies don’t always talk together and you have to go to literally a number of agencies and tell the same story all the time. That’s not efficient.” The federal government should streamline the process so states don’t have to go to “four or five different agencies to access … the billions of dollars” from the infrastructure law, said Caron: Passing the bill was “the easy part.”

Nelson supported NARUC’s RDOF resolution to keep awards in state, though he noted the 2020 program relied on a map that may not be up-to-date. “At least in South Dakota, since then some of those areas have been built out using either state funds or [Rural Utilities Service] ReConnect funds,” he said. “The need is probably a little bit smaller than it was at that time, but it still remains.” It’s not certain those areas would get money from NTIA’s broadband, equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program, said Nelson. “The biggest question there is … how many companies are willing to deal with all of the hoops they will have to jump through to utilize BEAD funding.”

Nelson also supported the resolution on extending FCC auction authority. “It just seems to me that when you’ve been given the mandate to” switch out equipment from Chinese vendors that may pose a security risk, “somebody needs to pay for that,” the commissioner said.

The RDOF resolution's sponsor is "grateful for NARUC’s full bipartisan support because at the end of the day, this resolution is about fairness and access to much-needed high-speed internet services," Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission Chairman Gladys Brown Dutrieuille said Wednesday. The FCC already identified what areas needed broadband in Pennsylvania and other states, she said. "Federal dollars previously awarded for specific areas to meet that need should be retained for use in those regions."