Senate Leaders Skeptical of New Bid to Add ACP, Rip-and-Replace Money to FAA Bill

A new bid by Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., and other senators to attach stopgap funding for the FCC’s affordable connectivity program and additional money for the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program to the FAA Reauthorization Act (see 2405070083) faces resistance from chamber leaders. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and other leaders are skeptical about including nongermane language in the FAA package. A previous proposal to attach ACP money drew opposition during a Tuesday night “hotline” that Senate leaders ran to gauge lawmakers’ support for amendments in the package.

Some backers of the Lujan amendment told us they aim to hold up efforts to reach a time agreement that would expedite consideration of the FAA package until Senate leaders allow a vote on their amendment. Schumer filed cloture Tuesday night on the FAA Reauthorization Act as a substitute for vehicle Securing Growth and Robust Leadership in American Aviation Act (HR-3935) and the underlying bill. The move sets up procedural votes for Thursday. The House voted 385-24 for a one-week extension (HR-8289) of the FAA's mandate, which would otherwise expire Friday night, as a stopgap.

The amendment that Lujan and others filed Tuesday night would allocate $6 billion for ACP and $3.08 billion to fully fund the rip-and-replace initiative. An earlier proposal from amendment co-sponsors Sens. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, and Peter Welch, D-Vt., sought $7 billion for ACP attached to the FAA package (see 2405010055). President Joe Biden requested $6 billion in October for ACP (see 2310250075).

Amendment authors drew the rip-and-replace money proposal from co-sponsor Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont. The amendment includes language from Daines’ Supporting National Security with Spectrum Act (S-4049) that offsets the rip-and-replace allocation by authorizing a reauction of 197 returned AWS-3 licenses (see 2403220056). Former Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., also are original co-sponsors of the amendment. Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., backed the amendment Wednesday, a spokesperson said.

Lujan acknowledged the proposal mirrors several ACP-related elements from a coming congressional Universal Service Fund working group proposal (see 2404170066). These include ending the affordability initiative’s $100 device subsidy. “We should all be working to secure the support necessary to fund” ACP, and it's sensible to include some lawmakers' proposed changes to the program's “parameters,” he told us Wednesday. The amendment would alter ACP eligibility rules, including rolling back the threshold to households with combined income at or below 135% of the federal poverty line. It would give households that no longer qualify an extra six months of subsidy and mandate that the FCC recertify eligibility within 240 days.

“All ideas are on the table” for ensuring “a solution gets to [Biden’s] desk as soon as possible,” Lujan told us. He's unsure whether Schumer and other Democratic leaders would view the amendment as relevant to the FAA package, “but I know that we're pushing with everything we have.” The new amendment “is yet another solution that has bipartisan support” to ensure ACP “does not go away” when its existing funding runs out at the end of May, Lujan said.

The amendment “has a very good chance" of reaching the 60-vote threshold needed to attach multiple amendments to a bill, Vance told us Tuesday night. “The bigger question is whether we can actually force a vote on it, which we're going to try very hard to do” in the coming days. He and Welch previously planned to hold up the FAA package absent a vote on their $7 billion ACP amendment (see 2405020072).

Wicker expects “some” Senate Republicans would vote for the amendment if it came to the floor but told us “I haven't done a whip check or anything of that nature.” Several lobbyists pointed to Wicker's co-sponsorship of the proposal as potentially significant in changing Republicans’ opinions.

Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., told us the Lujan-led amendment, like the earlier Welch-Vance proposal, will likely run afoul of Senate leaders because it attaches nongermane language to the FAA package. Schumer warned senators Wednesday that adding “extraneous changes will only increase the likelihood" that the package doesn't pass before the FAA mandate expires Friday night.

“It's not” just Schumer who would object but “all four corners,” Cantwell told us. “We hope to go back to committee” soon to mark up her revised draft Spectrum and National Security Act, which proposed loaning the FCC $7 billion for ACP and rip-and-replace funding and using future auction revenue to pay back the money (see 2404290069). Senate Commerce postponed a markup of the measure last week (see 2405010051).

Senate Communications ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., also remains leery of including ACP money in the FAA package despite the new amendment's inclusion of program changes from the USF working group he and Lujan co-lead. “Anything nongermane has a pretty rocky path” of getting into the FAA package, Thune told us. “As soon as you … indicate that you’re going to take one, then everybody else can object to not getting theirs on there too.” Additional rip-and-replace funding “could be part of the broader spectrum conversation” occurring in the House and Senate Commerce committees, he said.

The Competitive Carriers Association, CTIA, NCTA, USTelecom and nine other industry groups urged Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to back the Lujan-led amendment. “Fully and immediately funding” rip and replace “and sustaining the ACP are both critical for supporting and maintaining connectivity across the country, especially in rural areas and low-income communities,” the groups said in a Wednesday letter to the Senate leaders. The Affordable Broadband Campaign, Common Sense Media, the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, the National Lifeline Association and the Schools, Health and Libraries Broadband Coalition also endorsed the amendment.