O’Rielly Visits NARUC for Federal-State Joint Board Meetings
SAN DIEGO -- FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly’s visit to NARUC's meeting re-energized federal-state joint boards on Universal Service and Jurisdictional Separations, state commissioners said. But the boards established by the 1996 Telecom Act may be losing relevance, they said. O’Rielly has been federal chair of the boards since February. He participated Tuesday in separate closed-door meetings in San Diego, with each lasting about an hour, NARUC attendees said.
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“State members appreciated our first opportunity to meet and have a productive conversation with Commissioner O'Reilly on the contribution methodology referral,” Universal Service Joint Board State Chairman Chris Nelson, a South Dakota Public Utilities Commission member, said on Wednesday. The joint board has been reviewing the USF contribution system (see 1705260048). The O’Rielly office didn’t comment. O'Rielly tweeted about the meeting Wednesday: "Many thanks to @NARUC (and @nasucadc) members of USF & Separations Joint Boards for meeting with me yesterday & discussing our work ahead!"
The Separations Joint Board hadn’t met since 2014, and members Tuesday approved the minutes of that meeting, state member and Montana PUC Commissioner Travis Kavulla said in an interview Wednesday. Kavulla said the joint board likely will convene more frequently. However, the former NARUC president said it’s not “good government or healthy to keep something on the books that no longer has practical effects.”
“Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead,” said Kavulla, referencing an old Saturday Night Live skit. Separations “used to be at the center point of controversy because of rate regulation at the state level and at the federal level," he said. “Now its point of relevance seems to be informing [about] the underfunded costs of rural rate-of-return carriers and their eligibility and magnitude of support they receive from state universal fund programs for high-cost rural carriers.” Even that’s changing because federal high-cost reform is shifting many of those carriers to alternative Connect America cost model (A-CAM) support, Kavulla said.
NARUC Telecom Committee Chairman Paul Kjellander praised O’Rielly for coming to San Diego to meet with states. It has been challenging for O’Rielly to be engaged in the joint boards since he was named their federal chair because the FCC is operating without a full complement of commissioners, the Idaho Public Utilities Commission member said in a Tuesday interview. States want to send the FCC the message that “we’re here,” Kjellander said. “It’s not that we’re here to be a thorn in anyone’s side. … We all want the same thing -- that’s to ensure that consumers are benefiting from the technological advances that are happening in the industry.” Kjellander isn’t a member of the joint boards and didn’t participate in the O’Rielly meetings.
O’Rielly also chairs the Joint Conference on Advanced Telecommunications, which didn’t meet. The NARUC Telecom Committee passed a resolution Tuesday noting that the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC) appears to echo the mission of the joint conference, but with many more industry representatives than state and local officials (see 1707180007). Kjellander said state Chair Gregg Sayre, a New York commissioner who sponsored the resolution, earlier spoke with O’Rielly about the joint conference’s future.
The roles of joint boards have become less clear in recent years, Kjellander said, and it’s time for a rewrite. A rewrite should maintain “cooperative federalism,” a partnership between states and the federal government, he said. “It’s not about us getting everything we want … but it’s more importantly to be engaged and to have that almost mandate to be engaged.”
NARUC Notebook
The only way to get certainty on net neutrality is for Congress to pass a law, Kjellander said in a Tuesday interview. “It may not be the certainty I want, but give it to the industry so that money can get off the sideline [and] get invested where it needs to be,” he said. The millions of comments at the FCC show great interest in the subject (see 1707190025), Kjellander said, and it doesn’t help consumers to overturn rules every time a new administration comes in. Even in the current political climate, Kjellander remains an optimist and is hopeful Congress can act, he said: “It’s time.”
Tackling robocalls is an international issue, with the FCC coordinating with the U.K.’s Ofcom and Canada’s Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission on a joint solution, SIP Forum Chairman Richard Shockey said. Robocalls are the top consumer complaint to all three agencies, he said. More nations are interested and may join the effort, he said. Robocalls is one issue that unites FCC stakeholders because no one is pro-robocall, panelists said. “Everyone is in this boat together,” said T-Mobile Vice President-State Government Affairs Dave Conn. AT&T has blocked 2 billion illegal robocalls using big data, said Director-State Legislative and Regulatory Affairs Brenda Clark. Blacklists and call blocking are “not the panacea” for illegal robocalls, Neustar Senior Policy Adviser Brent Struthers said on a Tuesday panel. Some legitimate numbers are flagged incorrectly as fraudulent, and it can be difficult especially for small businesses to get numbers unblocked, he said.