A 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling last week against the SEC could have implications for FCC enforcement actions and the powers of administrative law judges like the FCC’s ALJ Jane Halprin, but it is too early to be sure how the ruling against the SEC applies to other agencies, said academics and communications attorneys in interviews. Based on that Jarkesy v. SEC decision, U.S. Supreme Court rulings and a pair of cases currently before SCOTUS, the outlook for ALJs at federal agencies -- including the FCC -- “looks a little shaky,” said Jeffrey Lubbers, an administrative law professor at American University. “I’d be surprised if this decision is the final word,” said former FCC General Counsel Tom Johnson, now with Wiley.

Wiley’s Anna Gomez, former acting NTIA administrator, backed the Extending America’s Spectrum Auction Leadership Act (HR-7783) and two NTIA-focused spectrum bills in written testimony ahead of a Tuesday House Communications Subcommittee hearing (see 2205170081). HR-7783 is one of five wireless-focused bills House Communications will examine during the Tuesday hearing. The others are: the Ensuring Phone and Internet Access for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Recipients Act (HR-4275), the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences Codification Act (HR-4990), the Simplifying Management, Reallocation and Transfer of Spectrum Act (HR-5486), and the Safe Connections Act (HR-7132). The partly virtual hearing will begin at 11 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn.

Rural areas mustn’t take a “back seat” when Pennsylvania receives a large influx of federal dollars for high-speed internet, said state Sen. Gene Yaw (R) at a Center for Rural Pennsylvania broadband hearing livestreamed Friday. Preparing to distribute possibly more than $1 billion, the new Pennsylvania Broadband Development Authority is “combing through” NTIA notices of funding opportunity released earlier this month, said Executive Director Brandon Carson. State legislators appeared interested in pursuing a state broadband map after a panel of data experts said it could help maximize the state’s funding.

Citing the need to modernize the FCC's high cost USF programs and align them with recent federal broadband investments through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, commissioners on Thursday unanimously adopted an NPRM seeking comment on an Alternative Connect America Cost Model (ACAM) Broadband Coalition proposal extending the program. The proposal would increase deployment obligations in exchange for additional funding, and seeks comment on whether to extend participation to carriers that haven't already been participating in the program.

Pole policies and participants must respond to climate change, said current and former state utilities regulators during an FCBA virtual event Monday. Pole replacement backlogs and insufficient information about attachments are challenges, they said. Florida could finalize its process this summer to become the 23rd state, in addition to Washington, D.C., to reverse preempt FCC pole attachments authority, said Berger Singerman cable attorney Floyd Self on another panel.

Multistate broadband internet access service (BIAS) providers are facing challenges navigating the federal and state grant processes for the growing array of digital divide grant and subsidy programs, though some foresee that forest getting easier to navigate. We were told the complexity of applications could put a chill on the number of providers applying. Sizable attention will be paid to how detailed the NTIA guidance is on the broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program established by the Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), they said.

ClearCaptions asked the FCC to seek additional information from Global Caption on how it will "ensure its proposed [automatic speech recognition]-only offering will provide functionally equivalent" IP captioned telephone services if it grants the company's application for certification to provide ASR-based IP CTS supported by the Telecom Relay Service Fund. In comments posted Tuesday in docket 03-123 (see 2204070050), ClearCaptions said it "does not believe ASR-only IP CTS delivers acceptable experiences on unscripted calls" and recommended the FCC seek information about how Global Caption will provide functionally equivalent service "when captioning on calls is or becomes problematic for the ASR system." Several advocacy groups, including the Hearing Loss Association of America, Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, National Association of the Deaf, and Gallaudet University's Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Technology for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, said the FCC should "carefully evaluate" Global Caption's application to ensure it meets the "concededly low bar" of delivering a "similar level of quality to those already certified." The groups also sought scrutiny of the quality and privacy aspects of the company's plan to provide ASR-based IP CTS to incarcerated individuals.

The FCC Wireline Bureau announced its annual tariff review plans for LECs, effective July 1, in an order posted Monday in docket 22-108. The bureau waived commission rules limiting annual access charge tariff filings to rate-level changes and clarified the "extent that rate-of return carriers receiving model-based universal service support may recover certain exogenous costs through end user charges and Connect America Fund-Intercarrier Compensation (CAF-ICC) support." The bureau also reminded LECs that are required to submit annual filings to pay the new filing fees through the new payment system, said a public notice.

The Biden administration’s Monday announcement (see 2205060046) that 20 ISPs committed to offer low-income households broadband plans with download speeds of at least 100 Mbps at no more than $30 per month got a mixed reception among communications policy stakeholders. All of the participating ISPs -- which include Altice, AT&T, Charter, Comcast, Cox, Frontier, Mediacom and Verizon -- were already part of the FCC’s affordable connectivity program that subsidizes qualifying households’ broadband up to $30 per month. The White House said the participating ISPs cover more than 80% of the U.S. population.

The Senate Commerce Committee plans to mark up a Democratic bill Wednesday that would restore the FTC’s Section 13(b) authority to seek equitable monetary relief, as expected (see 2205030056). The Consumer Protection Remedies Act (S-4145), led by Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., would restore the 13(b) authority, which the Supreme Court stripped last year (see 2104220068). Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., and Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., signed on as co-sponsors. Cantwell initially sought GOP support for the bill (see 2106210054) with committee ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss. Also on the agenda: the Funding Affordable Internet with Reliable Contributions Act (S-2427) and the Network Equipment Transparency Act (S-3692). S-2427 would direct the FCC to study “the feasibility of funding Universal Service Fund through contributions supplied by edge providers” like Google-owned YouTube and Netflix (see 2107210067). S-3692 would require the FCC to determine as part of future Telecom Act Section 706 broadband deployment reports “whether a lack of network equipment significantly impacted the deployment of advanced telecommunications capability during the applicable year.” The markup begins at 10 a.m. in 253 Russell.