Vance Sees Likely Defeat of Bid to Add ACP, Rip-and-Replace Money to FAA Bill

A bipartisan bid aimed at attaching $6 billion in stopgap funding for the FCC’s affordable connectivity program and $3.08 billion for the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program to the FAA reauthorization package appeared likely to fail Thursday amid opposition from Senate leaders (see 2405080047). Amendment co-sponsor Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, conceded in an interview Thursday he and other backers appear to lack the necessary votes to hold up consideration of the FAA package. Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and amendment co-sponsor Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., separately confirmed to us that chamber leaders still resisted allowing a floor vote on the proposal because they view it as nongermane to the FAA package.

“Nothing extraneous” to aviation issues “will get on” the FAA package, Cantwell told reporters. “I think our colleagues want to get this done” quickly before the FAA’s mandate expires Friday night. The Senate voted 84-13 Thursday to invoke cloture on the FAA Reauthorization Act as a substitute for vehicle Securing Growth and Robust Leadership in American Aviation Act (HR-3935).

“I don’t think we have the votes to hold this thing up indefinitely” even though “we certainly have the votes to pass the amendment,” Vance told us after a floor speech where he criticized Senate leaders for objecting to the ACP/rip-and-replace proposal. He and Welch previously planned to use the delay tactic to force a floor vote on an earlier amendment to the FAA package allocating ACP $7 billion (see 2405020072). “Worst-case scenario, we could draw this thing out into the weekend,” Vance told us. “We’ve obviously made it more painful” by slowing consideration of the package into Thursday afternoon. If Senate leaders “don’t want to play ball, there’s only so much you can do,” he said.

“Unfortunately, it looks like the leadership does not want to give us a vote on” the ACP/Rip-and-replace amendment, Vance said on the floor. He read several letters from Ohio constituents supporting ACP, showing “that real people are going to suffer when this program goes away” when funding runs out at the end of May. “It sort of breaks my heart when a constituent who can’t afford internet service is writing to us apologizing for” ACP’s “budgetary hit when it’s a tiny, tiny slice of the American federal budget,” Vance said: “If we can afford to fund military conflicts the world over, can’t we afford to provide basic connectivity and services for our own people?”

Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., earlier Thursday touted “growing bipartisan support” in favor of the amendment. Lujan noted 10 additional senators -- five Democrats and five Republicans -- signed on as co-sponsors since he led filing of the amendment Tuesday night (see 2405070083). The new co-sponsors: Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio; Laphonza Butler, D-Calif.; Kevin Cramer, R-N.D.; Mike Crapo, R-Idaho; John Fetterman, D-Pa.; Roger Marshall, R-Kan.; Alex Padilla, D-Calif.; Gary Peters, D-Mich.; and Jim Risch, R-Idaho. Lujan’s office also cited new endorsements from the ACLU, Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, Center for Civil Rights and Technology, Communications Workers of America, Connected Nation, Digital Progress Institute, EducationsSuperHighway, National Consumer Law Center, New America’s Open Technology Institute, the Pew Charitable Trusts, Public Knowledge and R Street Institute.