Clyburn Defends Lifeline, Campaigns for Expansion to Broadband
Acting FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn offered an impassioned defense of the Lifeline program Thursday, saying it’s crucial to help lift the downtrodden out of poverty. It should be expanded, not limited, she told a New America Foundation audience. Clyburn commended Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., for sponsoring the Broadband Affordability Act, which would require the FCC to expand Lifeline to broadband services (CD April 24 p3).
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The “most vocal” Lifeline attackers like to repeat an “urban myth” that USF money is going to free “Obama phones,” Clyburn said. But the program -- “a legacy of Ronald Reagan” that was expanded under President George W. Bush -- doesn’t support phones, just phone service, she said. Some want to eliminate the wireless subsidy, but this makes no sense, she said. “How is someone between several part time low-skill jobs -- how is that person able to communicate with their child care provider without a mobile phone?"
It’s especially illogical to eliminate support for one technology, Clyburn said, because that would abandon the FCC’s principles of regulating in a technology-neutral way. “Making Lifeline a wired-only program is one of the most illogical things I've heard since my appointment here in D.C.,” she said. Although “some bad actors” have failed to “respect our rules,” the FCC has taken steps to reduce fraud and abuse in its 2012 Lifeline reform order, she said. The order started a national Lifeline Accountability Database to guard against double dipping in the program (CD Feb 1/12 p1). It also set up a broadband adoption pilot program. There are 14 pilot projects underway to test the potential for expanding Lifeline support into broadband, Clyburn said.
"Lifeline has always enjoyed bipartisan support,” Matsui said on a conference call hosted later Thursday by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. “It has unfortunately gotten tangled in partisan politics.” Those who want to pare back or eliminate Lifeline would “certainly take our nation backward,” she said. It makes sense to expand Lifeline to include broadband, she said. “The Internet is as much a lifeline as a telephone once was."
Also Thursday, a coalition of more than 80 public interest, civil rights and religious organizations wrote members of the Senate and House Commerce Committees urging them to protect Lifeline. “Allegations of abuse and fraud are exceptions,” said the letter sent by Free Press, the ACLU, Consumers Union, Leadership Conference, NAACP and others (http://bit.ly/15VgbVK). “It’s important to keep in mind the many deserving subscribers and communities currently relying on this vital resource."
One such Lifeline subscriber was Jessica Gonzalez, now vice president-policy and legal affairs at the National Hispanic Media Coalition. “There’s a misconception about who uses Lifeline,” she said. Many who were on the program don’t want to talk about that time in their life, she said: “I'm an activist and I didn’t even want to tell my story.” Gonzalez went on Lifeline for a short time after she was laid off from her teaching job, but before she attended law school. Without Lifeline, “I would have had no phone number to put on my resume,” she said. “It truly was a pathway out of poverty for me.”