Terry to Reintroduce USF Revamp Early Next Session
Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., plans “no changes” to his bill to revamp the Universal Service Fund, he said in an interview last week. He hopes the bill, six years in the making, can be reintroduced early next session, he said. After the election defeat of Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., Terry is looking for a new Democratic co-sponsor.
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The USF bill that Terry and Boucher introduced in July “was such a delicate balance that I am not looking to make any changes,” Terry said. He signed off on every line of this year’s package, which was introduced in July (CD July 23 p1), he said. “I worry that if I change any word in any place, we would lose a lot of our support.”
But it’s “open for discussion” whether a more senior Republican will seek edits, Terry said. He hasn’t yet talked about it with any of the four Republicans chasing the Commerce Committee chair, he said. Two support and two oppose Terry’s USF bill, Terry said. Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., “has suggested that [USF reform] would be on his itinerary,” and Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., also supports the bill, Terry said. But Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., “obviously would not support in any way any part of this bill.” While Commerce Committee Ranking Member Joe Barton, R-Texas, isn’t opposed, he “probably is not going to make it a high priority, either,” Terry said.
Boucher and Terry waited to introduce the last version of their USF bill until late in the 111th Congress. It “took a great deal of time and persistency” for Boucher and Terry to balance all the stakeholders’ interests, and Terry wants to introduce the bill quickly in the 112th Congress to “keep the momentum” going, he said. However, Terry expects net neutrality and the FCC’s broadband authority will be the top telecom priority for the next Congress, he said. “Even though I've spent six years or longer writing a USF bill, even I say [USF] takes secondary position."
A big question is who will be the lead Democratic co-sponsor, said Terry. The other Democratic co-sponsor of the bill was Rep. Zack Space, D-Ohio, who also lost his election. Terry “absolutely” will be seeking a new Democratic co-sponsor, he said. “We're setting up discussions with a couple different offices.” Terry declined to name them. It will be someone on the Communications Subcommittee, he said. Whether the member is rural or urban “does not come into the equation,” he said: It will be “somebody who understands it, supports it and will work it."
Next year’s Communications Subcommittee could have a dearth of Democrats representing rural areas, due to retirements and the election results. That’s a “concern,” Terry said, because USF breaks members by rural-versus-urban rather than partisan lines. “My job is to educate the more urban members,” who tend to be “agnostic” about USF reform, he said. “If we don’t do these things, you're going to end up with a wider [digital] divide between urban and rural areas, which is the whole point of USF.”