Multiple parties in Oregon want the FCC to change its Lifeline rules. The FCC should kill the requirement that state Lifeline administrators send subscribers’ Lifeline certification forms to eligible telecom carriers before the carriers can claim reimbursement, said the Oregon Public Utility Commission staff and the Oregon Telecom Association in an ex parte filing posted Friday (http://xrl.us/bn2itg). Without modification, the FCC’s rules will compel the Oregon PUC to “photocopy and mail an average of 2,500 to 4,000 (and growing) certification forms each month to the consumer’s respective ETC,” they said. They support the position of USTelecom, which raised concerns in April and acquired a waiver through December to this end. The filing suggests that the FCC call for the state administrators to provide the eligible carriers with notice that subscribers qualify for Lifeline and that certification forms have been executed, the filing said. The Oregon stakeholders argue the current FCC requirement “does nothing to enhance the validity of the subscriber’s eligibility” and instead adds “burden and costs” to state Lifeline administrators and carriers. Oregon would execute its program more efficiently if these contested FCC rules are waived, they said.

The FCC should deny attempts to rescind the Tribal Government Engagement Obligation Provisions developed during the agency’s work on USF reform, the National Broadband Plan and the Connect America Fund, the National Congress of American Indians of the U.S. (NCAI) said Tuesday in an ex parte filing (http://xrl.us/bnznyn). The filing occurred after the NCAI adopted a resolution Oct. 26 encouraging the FCC to uphold the Tribal Engagement Provisions, which the FCC’s Office of Native Affairs developed in connection with the Wireline and Wireless bureaus (http://xrl.us/bnznyt). The FCC developed the provisions “with the intent of improving the deployment of telecommunications services on tribal lands,” NCAI President Jefferson Keel said in the filing. The NCAI grew concerned after USTelecom filed a petition that requested reconsideration and clarification of the provisions. NCAI, Native Public Media, the Gila River Indian Community and Gila River Telecommunications filed replies in opposition to the USTelecom petition (CD Sept 28 p6). “Any rescission of the Tribal Engagement Provisions would be an unfortunate set-back in the progress needed to bring digital communications to this country’s least connected peoples and lands,” Keel said Tuesday in the NCAI filing.

Lobbying for and against media ownership deregulation continued, docket 09-182 shows (http://xrl.us/bnzhva). FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is expected to circulate an order this week allowing waivers for common ownership of radio or TV stations and a daily newspaper in the same major market, and ending limits on common ownership of a radio and TV station in a market (CD Nov 13 p1). Genachowski hadn’t circulated an order as of Tuesday, agency officials told us. A coalition of 200 groups including AARP, Common Cause, National Council of La Raza and unions (http://xrl.us/bnzhvr) asked the agency to not allow more broadcaster consolidation without the data its letter said the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last summer required “analyzing the impact of media consolidation on communities of color and women.” Any change in ownership rules “should take place only after the Commission collects, releases, and subjects to public comment complete data and analysis of broadcast ownership data,” the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights wrote. The Media Bureau hadn’t planned to release for public comment broadcast ownership Form 323s, though the bureau prepared a report and agency and industry officials said it’s still expected to release it (CD Oct 18 p1). It’s “a grave disservice to the constituencies represented by The Leadership Conference to attempt to push through a change in media ownership rules at the last minute without an opportunity for our members to sift through the data and engage in substantive debate about its import,” the group wrote (http://xrl.us/bnzhu6). A bureau spokeswoman had no comment. Bonneville International, Morris Communications and Scranton Times LP were among those asking the FCC to end limits on common ownership of radio stations and dailies in the same market. Former FCC Chairman Richard Wiley of Wiley Rein and Morris CEO William Morris met with commissioners Robert McDowell, Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel, with aides to Genachowski and with Chief Bill Lake and others in the bureau. “Absent relief from the newspaper/radio cross-ownership rule, the high level of local news and informational programming offered by existing newspaper/radio combinations” such as Morris owns in Amarillo, Texas, and Topeka, Kan., “would likely be lost,” the company said (http://xrl.us/bnzhwf). Newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rules are a “regulatory relic,” the Newspaper Association of America wrote (http://xrl.us/bnzhww). The cross-ownership ban “suppresses crucial investment in local journalism,” NAA said. The commission has been given “no factual foundation, or even serious legal argument, for keeping the newspaper/radio restriction,” lawyers for Bonneville and Scranton Times told an aide to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn (http://xrl.us/bnzhw8). Multichannel video programming distributors seeking changes to retransmission consent regulations again asked the agency to make it a retrans rule violation when separately owned TV stations coordinate carriage talks. “The Commission should clarify that any agreement, formal or informal and however styled, that directly or indirectly gives a third party the right to negotiate retransmission consent for that station constitutes a ’transfer of control'” needing FCC approval and/or being considered an attributable ownership interest, MVPDs reported telling Pai. American Cable Association, Cablevision, DirecTV, Dish Network, Time Warner Cable and USTelecom executives attended (http://xrl.us/bnzhxt).

BALTIMORE -- The recent series of natural disasters, including superstorm Sandy and the summer derecho, rattled officials and regulators this week at the NARUC meeting in Baltimore. They brainstormed about the best practices to keep communications networks resilient in the face of what may be increasingly volatile weather and discussed potential 911 innovations and strategies.

BALTIMORE -- State regulators are confronting an increasingly tortured relationship with the FCC, creating a task force to address it Monday at the NARUC meeting. It consists of seven commissioners and is already official and active. Meanwhile, two NARUC resolutions directly address the fractured FCC relationship, as was expected (CD Nov 2 p12), and NARUC adopted both resolutions as policy Tuesday after they advanced through the telecom subcommittee and committee. One urges FCC referral to the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service as well as to the Federal-State Joint Board on Jurisdictional Separations on major decisions, and another addresses a pending Supreme Court case on the Chevron doctrine, looking at the risk of federal overreach of authority.

Carriers’ capital expenditures may be a boon for small firms and those owned by women, minorities and other disadvantaged groups, the heads of PCIA and USTelecom said Thursday. Building more towers and adding other equipment to meet subscribers’ demand for data applications gives such firms an opportunity, speakers at a Minority Media and Telecommunications Council event said. CEOs Walter McCormick of USTelecom and Jonathan Adelstein of PCIA cited AT&T’s plan disclosed Wednesday to spend $14 billion on wireless and wireline broadband capacity (CD Nov 8 p11).

Nov. 5 Practising Law Institute “talk like a geek” webcast, 9 a.m. -- http://xrl.us/bnudjr

Oct. 29 FCBA Intellectual Property Committee brown bag lunch on Internet Radio Fairness Act, 12:15 p.m., Wilkinson Barker, 2300 N St. NW, Suite 7 -- http://xrl.us/bimfn6

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” was the reaction of Solvable Frustrations (SFI) to the overwhelming opposition to its request that the FCC modify its rules to create a class action complaint procedure (CD Oct 11 p5). Despite the “strident opposition” of USTelecom, AT&T, Verizon and others, the proposed rule “addresses a concrete problem,” SFI said (http://xrl.us/bnv2ta). Opponents’ concerns about the impact on commission resources are “invalid,” and the agency has the authority to adopt class complaint procedures, SFI said. “To best serve the ends of justice, certain telecommunications-specific class actions may prove best suited to an expert resolution through class complaint procedures utilized by the Commission,” SFI said. The company, which runs a website addressing consumer complaints, asked the FCC to “expeditiously” grant the petition and start a rulemaking proceeding.

The imminent FCC special access data request (CD Oct 23 p3) is neither imminent nor a request. The order that’s been circulating on the eighth floor doesn’t explicitly ask telecom providers for data on the state of competition in the special access marketplace, FCC officials told us Thursday. Rather, they said it gives delegated authority to the Wireline Bureau staff, providing guidance on what the data collection should say. It’s up to the bureau to actually pose the data questions, commission officials said. A bureau spokesman declined comment.