Vance, Welch Still Pushing for ACP Funding in FAA Package Amid Senate Leads' Resistance

Top Affordable Connectivity Program Extension Act (HR-6929/S-3565) backers Sens. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, and Peter Welch, D-Vt., said Thursday they plan to press forward with an amendment to the bipartisan 2024 FAA Reauthorization Act that would appropriate $7 billion in stopgap funding for the ailing FCC broadband program (see 2405010055) despite opposition from Senate leaders. ACP stopgap funding advocates used a Senate Communications Subcommittee hearing that day to implore that Congress act while critics raised objections about what they said was a lack of clear information about the program's efficacy.

Negotiations on amendments to the FAA package were expected to continue into next week. The Senate left for the weekend Thursday afternoon after voting 81-10 on the motion to proceed to the FAA bill as a substitute for the Securing Growth and Robust Leadership in American Aviation Act (HR-3935). The FAA’s current mandate runs through May 10.

“My plan is to try to hold up final passage” of the FAA package “until we get the vote on the amendment,” Vance told reporters. “Even if it ultimately fails, I think the American people at least deserve a vote on it.” If “the amendment vote doesn’t happen, it will be because people are anxious to get this done with and not because of any sort of dedicated opposition” to funding ACP, he said: “The FAA is obviously very important” and “I appreciate that.”

“I bet that we would get to 60 votes” for the ACP amendment that would be needed to overcome a filibuster, Welch told us. “There’s some hesitation from some members who think we can make improvements” to the program “and I’m all in for that. So is Senator Vance. We can sit down and get concrete” recommendations for program rule changes, but “what we can’t do is let the program expire.” The FCC estimates that remaining ACP funds will pay $14 of the usual $30 subsidy per participating household in May (see 2404100082). Welch made similar remarks during the Senate Communications hearing.

Cantwell Doubtful

The “four corners” of Senate “leadership right now [don’t] want anything that’s not germane” to aviation issues included in the FAA package, Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., told reporters Thursday. “We certainly want to get ACP fixed” and “I hope [Vance] could convince” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., “to do something there.” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., was doubtful Wednesday that an agreement on the FAA package would include nongermane amendments but said that wasn’t a settled matter while Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., continues talks on a time agreement.

Cantwell was more emphatic Thursday that a revised version of her draft Spectrum and National Security Act was unlikely to make it into the FAA package unless “the seas parted” and leaders reached a bipartisan agreement on the airwaves measure. She gave a more nuanced, but still negative, response Wednesday to the possibility of attaching her bill to the FAA package after Senate Commerce postponed its markup amid a lack of time to handle a set of 24 filed amendments (see 2405010051).

“Right now, we just want to get something out of [Commerce] and then you can think about” potential vehicles, Cantwell told reporters. The Spectrum and National Security Act proposes using future license sales revenue to repay a proposed loan to the FCC for $7 billion in stopgap ACP funding and $3.08 billion for the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program (see 2404250061).

“We’re always open to conversation” with Senate Commerce ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in hopes of reaching a deal that would bridge the divide between the Spectrum and National Security Act and his 2024 Spectrum Pipeline Act (S-3909), Cantwell told reporters. But it remains “challenging” to find a compromise that mandates repurposing spectrum on the 3.1-3.45 GHz band, as S-3909 does (see 2403110066), given strong opposition from members of the Armed Services committees. Cantwell said “that’s why we moved” in her bill for NTIA to instead assess the 7 GHz and 8 GHz bands for future use.

Congress 'Losing Credibility'

Vance’s amendment is “not going to go in” the FAA package whether or not Senate leaders deem it germane, Cruz predicted for us. He cited testimony from a Senate Communications hearing that, in his view, detailed “abuses in the program,” including “that barely 20% of the people receiving” the ACP subsidy “did not have broadband before” the initiative. He pointed to an analysis from Economic Policy Innovation Center CEO Paul Winfree that showed “the effect of this program is to triple the cost of broadband for consumers.” Fueling “inflation," Cruz said, "is not something Congress should be doing right now.”

Winfree’s findings, which Cruz and Senate Communications Subcommittee ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., focused on during the hearing, found a “positive relationship between the percentage of households receiving ACP subsidies and the increase in the average total monthly price for broadband since 2022.” During the hearing, Cruz and Thune also criticized the FCC’s 3-2 April vote that restored much of its rescinded 2015 net neutrality order, including reclassifying broadband as a Communications Act Title II service (see 2404250004). “The last time that these heavy-handed regulations were imposed … broadband investment declined,” Thune said: “There’s good reason to believe that this will happen again.”

Senate Communications Chairman Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., later sought to rebut Winfree. He noted a statement from Jonathan Cannon, R Street Institute policy counsel-technology and innovation, that cites data showing “the most popular broadband speed tier plan prices dropped by 18.1 percent during ACP implementation.” Lujan also prompted Brookings Institution senior fellow Blair Levin to affirm he hasn’t seen evidence that ACP has increased broadband prices.

Lujan told us he would back the Vance-Welch amendment to the FAA package, though he noted the Spectrum and National Security Act is a strong option. “The goal here is to ensure that there is short-term [money] for ACP while we also continue” via a Universal Service Fund working group to find a long-term funding solution, Lujan said. “My hope” for a USF revamp “is to have these programs in place to provide support to the American people and part of that includes reforms so that we can earn that needed support” from lawmakers “to get this across the finish line.”

“Congress is losing credibility and local service providers are losing customers and public trust” as the odds of ACP winding down continue rising, said New Mexico Office of Broadband Access and Expansion’s Jennifer Case Nevarez. “Losing the ACP will result in slower economic growth, increases in the cost of” a range of services “while decreasing the effectiveness of those services,” Levin said. “ACP’s dissolution” could make it riskier to participate in other federal broadband initiatives, including NTIA’s broadband equity, access and deployment program, said Kathryn de Wit, Pew Charitable Trusts Broadband Access Initiative director.