State Commissioners Seek 'Thoughtful' US Spending

State telecom commissioners seek smart broadband spending in a federal infrastructure package, they said in virtual and in-person interviews during NARUC’s Denver conference this week. COVID-19 highlighted broadband gaps and will forever change how policymakers look at internet issues, they said. “One of the only good things to come out of the pandemic is the realization that we need broadband,” said Alexandra Fernandez-Navarro, Puerto Rico Public Service Regulatory Board associate member.

NARUC’s board Wednesday passed telecom resolutions on the emergency broadband benefit (EBB), outage and disaster information sharing and recommendations by the association’s broadband task force. The broadband recommendations for the FCC and others include increasing state-federal coordination, prioritizing broadband support in areas with less than 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload, and removing barriers to nontraditional providers. The Telecom Committee cleared draft resolutions Tuesday.

Federal lawmakers shouldn’t just “throw money” at broadband, NARUC President Paul Kjellander told us: “Make sure that you’re targeting those financial resources to get real results.” Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority Commissioner Michael Caron urged “thoughtful” broadband spending in the infrastructure package: “I worry that, as they try to ... throw in there as much as they possibly can, it can’t possibly be thoughtful.”

Get “sufficient money allocated to finish the broadband buildout,” but coordinate programs to prevent overbuilding, said South Dakota Public Utilities Commission Chairman Chris Nelson (R). “The thing we don’t want to happen is for this money to be allocated, spent, and the problem not fixed.” He said that's especially when spending “huge dollars that the federal government doesn’t have.”

Don’t forget broadband adoption, said Fernandez-Navarro. “There’s a lot of money going towards infrastructure, but now we need to shift gears ... to the digital inclusion part of the equation.” The territory is “well on its way” to getting broadband infrastructure from past funding, but COVID-19 brought focus to affordability, digital literacy and having the right equipment, she said. More than 65,000 Puerto Rican households enrolled in the EBB program by June, Fernandez-Navarro said.” EBB is a “great start” that government should refine and turn into a permanent program merged with Lifeline, she said.

New Calculations

Although members had differed somewhat on exactly how long to recommend the federal government continue emergency broadband funding, they were of like mind about the importance of broadband overall. Telecom Committee members resolved the EBB funding-length issue before they approved the resolution that was one vote short of unanimous.

“COVID has changed everything and dramatically altered our calculation,” said California Public Utilities Commission member Cliff Rechtschaffen. “COVID made it crystal clear that broadband is essential for health, education [and] economic well-being.” It highlighted affordability issues and clarified “how important high-speed, high-quality broadband access is,” not just 3 Mbps, he said. “I hadn’t been sufficiently focused on that.”

California’s $6 billion for broadband is “extraordinary,” said Rechtschaffen. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed the spending bill Tuesday (see 2107200056). “I don’t know that we would have had the political support or the legislative wherewithal” to pass that “in the absence of the events of the last year and a half.” Rechtschaffen welcomed federal money for affordability through the EBB.

COVID-19 increased the importance of the NARUC broadband task force, which began before the pandemic, said Kjellander, a Republican from the Idaho PUC. “We realized that because of the pandemic ... we really needed to accelerate the effort to try and get more ubiquitous deployment.”

Broadband nutrition labels like the FCC has explored and President Joe Biden now wants the agency to proceed on may be worth considering, said Nelson. He had moderated a panel on which speakers generally agreed that speeds and other broadband issues confuse subscribers and policymakers. Having a label “would certainly help with the confusion,” Nelson told us. It’s unclear how “the details of it would come together” and whether such a label would present too much information, he added. “Can the average consumer make sense of that?” Nelson was “most concerned” that FCC Form 477s include reporting ISPs’ advertised speeds: That “makes no sense” because it may not be what companies actually deliver.

Cooperative Federalism

State commissioners seek a seat at the federal table.

Wednesday, Mississippi Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley (D) repeated his Tuesday call for state representatives on the FCC when there are openings, said a NARUC spokesperson. Kjellander highlighted NARUC's previous resolution on that topic and said the group will continue supporting active nominees put forward in the future, said the association's representative.

"I’m not interested, at all or in any way, in the job" at the FCC, Presley said after Tuesday's meeting, comments that he also made during the Telecom Committee session. He added that the agency shouldn't "only have a state commissioner as one of the five," as even more ex-state commissioners who become FCC members would be better. He has "high hopes that" acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, "who values state relationships," will "reinstitute the fed-state joint board’s core functions," said the former NARUC head.

The FCC should follow the example of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in setting up a federal-state task force, Kjellander told us. When NARUC spoke to the Biden telecom transition team, there seemed to be awareness that the FCC relationship with states could be improved, said the association president: “The proof is always ... in the pudding” and “a lot more needs to be done.”

Cooperation and coordination with states is important, agreed Caron, who this week moderated a NARUC session on the benefits. States make good partners to get people enrolled in EBB because they are close to the ground, he said.

State and territory commissioners should be involved in national broadband deployment efforts, said Fernandez-Navarro. Federal, state and local governments “all want the same thing, but we are not necessarily attacking it in a uniform manner.” The FCC could benefit from having a commissioner with a state or territorial government background, she said. “It would be wonderful to have somebody that has firsthand experience of how things work in states to be able to impact long-term policies in telecommunications.”

Fernandez-Navarro attended NARUC virtually because she said Puerto Rico’s emergency policies don't let government officials travel using public money. Rechtschaffen stayed home, citing separate schedule considerations. Other commissioners and staff said they felt comfortable attending the Denver conference in person.

NARUC Notebook

The Maryland Public Service Commission began virtual work without much lead time when the pandemic flared last year, said Commissioner Odogwu Linton on a Wednesday panel livestreamed from Denver. "We've learned that we can operate that way as an administrative agency.” The agency plans to continue virtual public hearings because it learned it gets more participation that way, he said. With the pandemic ongoing, regulators must be comfortable acting with things in flux, said Linton. “Make decisions today, and then course correct.”

Many state consumer advocate offices relied on desktops and had to quickly adopt laptops and VPNs, said National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates President Chris Ayers. Some of his team at the North Carolina Utilities Commission Public Staff lacked dependable broadband at home and had to go into the office to join virtual commission meetings, he said. Cable networks “stood up to the test” of many more people teleworking thanks to companies’ “forward-looking investment” and “light-touch regulation,” said NCTA Vice President-State Affairs Rick Cimerman.

Editor's note: For more on the conference, see our preview story here. For coverage of Telecom Committee Monday events, see here, here and here. For coverage of Tuesday's meetings, see here and here. And for how the conference and its attendees dealt with COVID-19, see here.