O'Rielly Wants 911 Fee Diverters Barred From Related COVID-19 Funding

Talks between Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., on funding mechanisms have “accelerated," Pelosi said Thursday during a conference call with reporters. “They know that I want to go forward” with infrastructure appropriations as part of the next COVID-19 bill. Increased use of telemedicine, teleworking, distance learning and social media “have made access to high-speed broadband more critical than ever,” she said. “Even kids who might get a free laptop" via a philanthropy must “go some place else to be able to connect.”

“One questionable proposal floated for possible inclusion in past rounds was to inject Federal funding into deploying” NG-911, O’Rielly wrote House Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J., Senate Commerce Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and others. “Any effort to do this without appropriate safeguards should be a cause for concern” because New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Nevada divert 911 money. “I implore each of you to support the existing prohibition in Federal law that prevents certain Federal money from being made available to these states” for 911 systems, O’Rielly said in the letter, which we obtained. “To do otherwise would facilitate these states’ diversionary practices and directly harm efforts, such as mine, to protect consumers from paying 9-1-1 fees on their phone bills that ultimately are used for other, unrelated purposes.”

O’Rielly worries current bills addressing 911 fee diversion aren't “sufficient deterrents to force states to stop stealing these precious funds.” He “firmly” believes “the situation requires more stern remedies and penalties than those put on the table so far. Specifically, public officials in Rhode Island, New Jersey, and New York likely will ignore anything that doesn’t dramatically alter the status quo.” A version of the Don’t Break Up the T-Band Act (HR-451) the House Communications Subcommittee advanced in early March includes language from the Fee Integrity and Responsibilities and To Regain Essential Spectrum for Public-safety Operators Needed to Deploy Equipment Reliably (First Responders) Act (HR-5928) to address states' shifting of funding usage (see 2003100067).

Markey and other Senate Democrats urged Pelosi and other congressional leaders to include additional E-rate funding in the next stimulus measure to help “schools and libraries to provide Wi-Fi hotspots or other devices with Wi-Fi capability to students without adequate connectivity” at home.Signers include Senate Communications Subcommittee ranking member Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii. They were “disappointed” the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (HR-748) enacted last week contained no such appropriations (see 2003260063). House Democrats’ Take Responsibility for Workers and Families Act counterproposal to HR-748 included a $2 billion E-rate allocation (see 2003230066).

E-rate funding is one of several telecom provisions lawmakers are eyeing for the COVID-19 bill, communications sector lobbyists told us. Emergency funding for Lifeline aimed at reimbursing participant ISPs and further appropriations to implement the recently enacted Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act (HR-4998) are apparently on the table, lobbyists said. HR-4998 provides funding to help U.S. communications providers remove from their networks Chinese equipment determined to threaten national security (see 2003120061).

Some Republicans are eyeing the coming bill as a vehicle to ease regulatory barriers to network upgrades, lobbyists said. There’s also interest in including funding for open radio access networks software for 5G networks, lobbyists said. National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow and FCC Chairman Ajit Pai championed it as an alternative to Chinese equipment maker Huawei (see 2002040056).