The USA Coalition and SouthernLINC Wireless filed a petition for...

should be kept “as a potential down payment on proposed broadband universal service reforms … including to index the E-rate funding cap to inflation.” Sprint and Verizon had agreed in merger commitments to leave the money in the pool. The petition asks the FCC to drop the Corr Wireless decision and grant Corr’s entire request for review. “In its well-intentioned zeal to implement the National Broadband Plan, the Commission has put the cart before the horse and strayed from the requirements of the Communications Act,” the petition said. “In so doing, the Commission risks undermining its efforts to implement sustainable universal service reform and inciting years of litigation that would slow broadband deployment by creating regulatory uncertainty.” The Act doesn’t given the FCC authority to set up an account “to be used for unspecified purposes at an undetermined point in the future,” the petition says. “The Act, which originated in the Senate, could not authorize the Commission to do so without itself violating the Origination and Taxing Clauses of the United States Constitution.”