Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., threatened to try to...
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., threatened to try to end the Lifeline program if the FCC can’t control it. She harangued the agency for what she deems to be waste, fraud and abuse in the program, intended for low-income Americans, and…
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offered to help grant the FCC additional statutory authority to resolve the problems if needed -- or to kill it if not: “I am equally prepared to aggressively pursue legislation to terminate the Lifeline program if the FCC continues to prove it cannot control the program,” she told FCC acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn in a letter McCaskill’s office released Monday (http://1.usa.gov/18nw45f). The senator focused on a Scripps Howard News Service report on Lifeline providers TerraCom and YourTel in which former sales agents “admitted to fabricating and signing enrollment documents at the request of their superiors,” with several people listed on applications claiming they had never seen or signed them, according to McCaskill’s letter. The FCC has defended recent changes to the program as preventing such waste, fraud and abuse and saving money. But McCaskill blasted the FCC changes to the program as “utterly lacking” and “proven badly insufficient.” She pointed to the “single enforcement action since it expanded controls,” amounting to $1 million in fines, and the “ballooned” costs since Lifeline expanded to offering prepaid wireless service in 2008. She wants the Justice Department and the FCC to pursue TerraCom and YourTel. McCaskill has scrutinized the program for years, most recently when questioning FCC nominee Michael O'Rielly at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing this month (CD Sept 19 p1).