A Pennsylvania tax incentives bill for wireless cleared the House Finance Committee in a 12-9 vote Tuesday. HB-1138 would exempt mobile telecom from the state’s sales and use tax and gross receipts tax. The panel sent the bill to the Rules Committee.

The Louisiana House voted 76-18 to pass a kids’ social media bill Monday. The Senate previously passed SB-162 (see 2305180042), but must vote again to concur with House edits. The bill would require social media companies to verify the age of users, and collect parental approval for minors, before allowing users to get accounts. Friday in Connecticut, the legislature passed a bill (SB-3) to set privacy rules for personal data of children under 18 and for consumer health information. The amendment to last year’s Connecticut Data Privacy Act will go to Gov. Ned Lamont (D).

An Ohio Senate panel supported upgrading to next-generation 911. The Financial Institutions and Technology Committee voted 4-0 Tuesday for SB-50. Ohio’s administrative services department could incur $10.3 million in yearly expenses to develop and maintain the NG-911 network, while counties may have to pay “several hundreds of thousands of dollars” to bring 911 systems into compliance, said a fiscal note: Costs might be fully offset by a NG-911 fee on landline, wireless and other communications services. The bill would replace the current 25-cents monthly wireless 911 fee with a 64-cents charge on communications services including landlines and VoIP. The bill would keep the current charge for prepaid wireless services, which is 0.005 percent of the retail sale price. “Expansion of the NG 9-1-1 fee to include communications services not currently subject to the fee is expected to increase the amount of revenue collected significantly,” the fiscal note said. The current wireless-only 911 charge collected about $25 million yearly on average over the past five years, it said. With the proposed larger and more broadly applied fee, “it is conceivable that revenue … could increase by tens of millions per year.”

Florida will apply pole-attachment rules to electric cooperatives under a bill (HB-1221) signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) Monday. Florida reverse-preempted FCC pole-attachment authority last year, allowing the state to regulate attachments and resolve disputes (see Ref:2206070071]). On Friday, DeSantis signed SB-552, which exempts from public record inspection requirements information on communications services locations, project proposals and challenges submitted to the Department of Economic Opportunity through state or federal grant programs. Friday in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott signed SB-1238 to update broadband grant rules with a fiber preference (see 2305300057).

The Nebraska Public Service Commission transferred broadband duties under NTIA’s broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program to the state’s broadband office and transportation department, the PSC said Tuesday. Four commissioners signed a resolution formalizing the transition. The commission had been working on the state’s five-year plan required to receive BEAD funding, but a state bill signed May 26 by Gov. Jim Pillen (R) shifted duties to a broadband office created in January (see 2302070039). “With the passage of LB 683, all authority for the BEAD Program now lies with the Nebraska Broadband Office,” said Tuesday's resolution.

A proposed California low-income pilot could be extended beyond the conclusion of the federal affordable connectivity program (ACP), under a revised draft released Monday. The California Public Utilities Commission plans to consider the item in docket R.20-02-008 at Thursday’s meeting. "The assigned Commissioner or assigned ALJ may extend the wireline pilot program beyond the conclusion of ACP to a date no later than two years after the effective date of this decision, regardless of whether the ACP is replaced by a successor federal subsidy program,” said new language by assigned Commissioner Genevieve Shiroma. “An extension ruling may not change the California LifeLine subsidy provided through the pilot program or replace the loss of the ACP discount.” Also, Shiroma revised a draft requirement that wireless pilot providers propose a replacement plan for customers after the pilot ends. "A service provider may propose to modify a replacement wireless service plan through a subsequent Tier 1 advice letter, so long as the replacement plan does not increase customer co-payments or reduce customer benefits,” it said. Apparently in response to Verizon’s concerns (see 2305170034), the revised draft also added an exception for “reasonable network management practices” to a proposed restriction on throttling wireless speeds. Providers may limit free smartphone distribution to one per household every 90 days, said another change to the draft.

Florida became the 10th state to sign a consumer privacy bill Tuesday. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed SB-262, which passed the legislature with wide bipartisan support last month (see 2305050048). “If a multibillion-dollar company is conspiring to take your data and sell it or use it against you, it is your right to be able to protect that data,” said DeSantis. Several red states passed privacy bills this year. Montana’s Greg Gianforte (R) became the ninth governor to sign a privacy bill on May 19. The Texas legislature passed a comprehensive privacy bill last week (see 2305300057). Consumer Reports urged the Florida legislature to amend the privacy law next year. The bill covers only companies with at least $1 billion annual revenue, noted CR policy analyst Matt Schwartz. "While we recognize that big tech companies are usually some of the worst privacy offenders, they are far from the only privacy offenders," he said. "This law should apply to any entity that collects significant amounts of consumer data." Also, lawmakers should allow users to opt out through a global mechanism, said Schwartz.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors adopted four communications policy resolutions Monday, including one supporting Senate confirmation of FCC nominee Anna Gomez and reconfirmation of sitting Commissioners Brendan Carr and Geoffrey Starks. President Joe Biden announced he was picking them in late May (see 2305220065). The mayors group also passed resolutions opposing the House Commerce Committee-cleared American Broadband Deployment Act permitting revamp package (HR-3557), supporting an extension of the FCC’s affordable connectivity program and urging NTIA to allocate funding from its broadband equity, access and deployment program with urban areas in mind.

New Hampshire legislators passed a pole-attachments bill requiring a stakeholders' group directed by the energy department’s enforcement division. The Senate concurred Thursday with House changes to SB-16. The group’s charter would end in 2029. The bill will go to the governor.

Verizon needs another year to migrate TracFone California customers to its network due to inaction by affected users, Verizon said in a Friday letter to the California Public Utilities Commission. In 2021, the CPUC approved Verizon’s TracFone buy with a condition that it migrate all TraceFone customers to Verizon’s network by Nov. 22 this year. Verizon seeks an extension to Nov. 22, 2024, “to align with federal regulatory obligations and to continue its efforts to persuade TracFone’s California-based customers to migrate through customer-friendly incentives in light of widespread customer inaction despite Verizon and TracFone’s robust outreach to affected customers.” The FCC’s merger approval allowed three-years minimum for customer migration, Verizon said. Saying it can’t force anyone, the carrier said it’s doing everything it can to move customers. “Despite robust outreach and generous incentives, a large number of customers have not migrated,” it said. “These customers have been contacted on a nearly weekly cadence, with some customers having received over 50 communications to date.” The carrier later in the letter described the number of unmoved customers as a “large percentage of the original universe of TracFone customers on non-Verizon networks.” If customers don’t move by the current deadline, Verizon would continue to provide service for the time being but cease to communicate migration offers, it said. “Such customers, assuming they do not switch service providers of their own volition, will remain in this status until TracFone ceases to provide service over the third-party network used to serve the customers.” Verizon would inform customers before they lose service, it said. The carrier asked the CPUC to extend the deadline by June 22.