Hill USF Working Group Leaders Demur on Hudson Proposal; SHLB Head Urges E-rate Pushback
The co-chairs of a bipartisan congressional working group are cautious about commenting on how a forthcoming USF legislative revamp proposal from House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Richard Hudson, R-N.C., could affect their own recommendations. The working group wants to circulate those recommendations to stakeholders this summer (see 2604300058). Hudson recently indicated that he’s now “shooting for” a June rollout of his USF proposal, which he hopes will “be on the same page” as the working group’s ideas (see 2606010056).
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Meanwhile, during a Friday briefing with congressional aides on USF revamp issues, Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition Executive Director Joey Wender said lawmakers should push back against the FCC’s new proposal for a comprehensive review of the E-rate program that appears to open the door to limiting or even eliminating it (see 2606040051). Wender and other E-rate advocates are planning a major push to defend the program (see 2606050053).
“We’ll see what [Hudson] does” in his USF proposal, said Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., co-chair of the working group, in an interview last week. “I haven’t heard anything from him” on what will be in it. “It’s my hope that he and I will be able to work together” on the working group’s recommendations, which aim to be a bipartisan compromise, said Fischer, who also chairs the Senate Communications Subcommittee. She remained tight-lipped about what the working group is planning to include in its recommendations but emphasized that “hopefully we’ll get something out this summer or maybe after summer.”
Sen. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., the other working group co-chair, told us he’s open to Hudson releasing his USF proposal ahead of the larger group’s recommendations “so long as [it’s in] the spirit of getting this done” in a bipartisan manner. Lujan said he and now-Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., first convened the working group in 2023 (see 2305110066) “with the goal” that it would lead to a “bicameral, bipartisan” compromise that could pass “in both chambers.”
Lujan, who's also Senate Communications ranking member, said he “would have concerns and objections” if any lawmaker is preemptively releasing a USF proposal now and is “not doing [it] with the goal of getting” viable legislation to President Donald Trump for his signature. “I certainly hope that we can all continue working together.”
House Communications ranking member Doris Matsui, D-Calif., told us Hudson’s plans for a separate USF proposal are “probably a good idea … as long as [the working group] can look at it and maybe make some suggestions” before he publicly releases it. The goal is “to make forward progress” on the working group’s recommendations, Matsui said last week. She noted that Hudson’s office hasn’t yet shared details of his pending proposal.
A communications industry lobbyist who follows Democrats’ policy discussions told us that party-affiliated lawmakers who are on the USF working group “were surprised” by Hudson’s plans to release his own proposal. The lobbyist said they “don’t really know what to make of” Hudson’s plans, given that Fischer recently “circulated” draft working group recommendations to “the Four Corners” officials, including Lujan, Hudson and Matsui.
Hill Briefing
On Friday, Wender said during the USF briefing with Capitol Hill aides that he “would like to see … Congress again reasserting itself with a very loud voice and saying ‘we don't want the FCC to take away’” E-rate, a possibility the commission has opened via its proposed program review. The FCC’s draft NPRM “explicitly discusses the possible sunset of the E-rate program,” Wender told congressional aides who attended the briefing. Lawmakers “should be setting” the federal government’s direction on E-rate since “a school or a library in every one of your congressional districts receives” funding from it.
Wender, NTCA CEO Mike Romano and other officials at the briefing, which lobbying firm Ehrlich & Associates sponsored, unanimously told congressional aides that lawmakers should concentrate on expanding USF’s contribution base rather than trying to make the fund subject to the Hill’s appropriations process. “I think we’re all in complete agreement” about that, said Staci Pies, Incompas’ senior vice president of government relations and policy.
“Appropriations is just not going to be the answer here,” said Public Knowledge Broadband Policy Director Alisa Valentin. “You're essentially putting this program on unstable ground,” as evidenced by how the FCC’s affordable connectivity program went dormant in 2024 after lawmakers refused to provide the initiative more funding when the initial allocation from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act ran out (see 2405100046).
“You don’t want to be stuck in a two-year funding cycle [for USF] that doesn’t cohere with the kind of investments [companies have] got to make” on broadband, said Roslyn Layton, senior vice president at Strand Consult. She advocated for the Lowering Broadband Costs for Consumers Act (HR-4032/S-1651), which would require the FCC to complete a rulemaking within 18 months to expand USF’s contribution base to include social media platforms, streaming services and most other major edge providers (see 2311160070).