Pro-Reseller Lifeline Draft Resolution Scores Gains in Panels at NARUC Meeting
A NARUC draft resolution backing reseller participation in the Lifeline program advanced at the state regulators' winter meeting. The consumer committee Sunday endorsed the draft to urge the FCC to continue to allow non-facilities-based Lifeline providers to continue to receive low-income telecom subsidies. Chairman Maida Coleman, a Missouri commissioner who sponsored the draft, told us Monday the action was unanimous. The panel didn't support a conflicting draft resolution that would welcome an FCC proposal to retarget Lifeline support to facilities-based providers but did endorse a nationwide number portability draft resolution, one of four telecom drafts being considered at the meeting (see 1801300023).
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The pro-reseller Lifeline draft also got backing from staff to the telecom committee, which is scheduled to consider the item Tuesday along with the conflicting draft resolution to welcome the FCC proposal. Drafts that are backed by a staff subcommittee typically "have momentum" in the telecom committee, said South Dakota Commissioner Chris Nelson, a committee member.
It's important that Lifeline support promotes investment in facilities to improve service, said District of Columbia Public Service Commission Chairman Betty Anne Kane, the sponsor of the competing draft resolution that backs the FCC proposal to end forbearance of a facilities-based Lifeline requirement. "In the long run, that's where the money should go," she told us. Kane said she didn't know how the telecom committee would decide the issue. Nebraska Commissioner Crystal Rhoades and some others said Friday they believed the pro-reseller Lifeline draft had the edge over Kane's draft (see 1802090024).
NARUC should unleash its "junkyard dog," General Counsel Brad Ramsay, in support of continued Lifeline participation by resellers by adopting the draft resolution of Coleman and others, said Mark Rubin, TracFone Wireless senior executive vice president, at a Lifeline panel. If non-facilities-based providers are barred, it will negatively affect tribal residents, veterans, the unemployed and underemployed, students needing to do homework and others, he said. Tribal Lifeline subscribers are already in danger of losing benefits under an FCC order that accompanied an NPRM, said Teresa Hopkins, executive director of the Navajo Nation Telecommunication Regulatory Commission.
TracFone comments to the FCC next week will address flaws in GAO's report last year on Lifeline, said Rubin, citing NPRM "overreliance" on the report. He said GAO criticism of the program focused on the period before the FCC made changes to address concerns about program errors, including subscriber duplications.
Lifeline has "one of the lowest" improper-payment percentages of any federal government funding program, said Claude Aiken, an aide to FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. Montana Commissioner Tony O'Donnell questioned the basis of that assertion, prompting Aiken to say it was based on public data from reviews of federal programs. Rhoades, who said she personally used Lifeline and other assistance in the past, called the waste, fraud and abuse issue a "red herring," finding it "particularly offensive" the program helping low-income people continues to be singled out for crackdowns. Kane said part of the concern is driven by increasing use of wireless in the program, which she suggested is harder to monitor.
Other NARUC news Monday: Regulators discussed the White House infrastructure spending plan (see 1802120001) and ISP allies sought regulatory certainty amid some regular skepticism (see 1802120022).