Wheeler Seeking Consensus at FCC for E-Rate Order to Get Vote at July Meeting
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is teeing up a vote on the future of the E-rate program at the commission’s July 11 meeting, as expected (CD May 27 p3). Wheeler’s office is “socializing” parts of the E-rate proposal with the other commissioner offices, FCC officials told us Wednesday. It’s still unclear whether Wheeler’s proposal will call for a general expansion of E-rate or just shifting funds within the program, with one main proposal being to pay for more Wi-Fi at schools and libraries.
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FCC Republican Commissioner Ajit Pai has repeatedly stressed his concerns about expanding the size of the program. “Put simply, the distribution of E-Rate funds is haphazard and doesn’t fulfill the promise of the program,” Pai said last year (http://fcc.us/1oOArhX). E-rate expansion has long been controversial, facing opposition especially from Republicans on Capitol Hill (CD July 19/13 p1\). The FCC has faced pressure from the highest levels. A year ago, President Barack Obama urged the commission to make high-speed broadband available to enough schools and libraries to connect 99 percent of American students (CD June 7/13 p7).
Wheeler said last week in a blog post that expanding Wi-Fi connections in schools and libraries is one of his top focuses as the FCC again takes up the program (CD June 10 p13) (http://fcc.us/1mxw729). One big question, FCC officials said Tuesday, is whether Wheeler will call for expansion of the program or just shifting funds within the current program.
The E-rate program “has generated controversy” ever since it was created by the 1996 Telecom Act, said former FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, now a Hudson Institute visiting fellow. “Over the years, however, even many Republicans, especially rural state senators, have supported and defended it,” he said. “These days, the debates tend to focus on whether the entitlement will be expanded. Fiscal conservatives will want to rein it in.”
"If there is an order drafted, the urban libraries very much hope it will make up for the many years the E-rate has shortchanged libraries to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a year,” said former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, counsel to the Urban Libraries Council. Former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps said he welcomes E-rate expansion and every school and library should be connected to a next-generation broadband. “However, the FCC should tread carefully, and resist the temptation to shift funds from other vital telecommunications programs,” said Copps, now a special adviser to Common Cause.
"Given a fairly wide consensus that there are parts of the E-rate program that need reform to avoid wasting funds through a mismatch of demonstrated needs and allowable expenditures, the first order of business should be to reform the program in a fiscally responsible manner without expanding the baseline size of the program,” said Free State Foundation President Randolph May. “This doesn’t mean that the size of the program has to remain forever frozen in place. But why not reform first before simply putting more money into the program? I know this is not the way Washington typically works, but it should.”(hbuskirk@warren-news.com),