Protect Lifeline: Sign Onto CUB’s Comments to the FCC Today!

As you may remember, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), led by Chair Ajit Pai, recently repealed the 2016 Open Internet Order which had enshrined federal Net Neutrality rules. (There is a glimmer of hope for 2018: Oregon Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley are working with Democratic colleagues to reverse the FCC’s decision using the Congressional Review Act.) Now, as if doing away with Net Neutrality weren’t bad enough for consumers, the FCC has launched a swift administrative process to dismantle Lifeline, a decades-old subsidy program that serves low-income telecommunications customers.

The current FCC’s plans to strip away foundational provisions of the program seem likely to destroy it all together or, at the very least, severely hamstring its ability to reach the millions of low-income Americans (and tens of thousands of Oregonians) who currently receive monthly voice or internet bill payment assistance.

Unfortunately, the media gives less attention to FCC attacks on the Lifeline program than those perpetrated against net neutrality. This is why CUB is working hard to shed light on Lifeline’s importance to low-income families across the country and Oregon. You can add your voice to CUB’s advocacy by signing onto our comments in advance of the FCC deadline on January 24.

A quick Lifeline refresher: The Reagan administration first launched the program in 1985 to help low-income families cover the cost of their landline telephone bills. The second Bush administration directed the FCC to update the program to offer support for mobile phone subscribers. Finally, in 2016, President Obama’s FCC, under the leadership of then-Chairman Tom Wheeler, once again modernized the program to include a broadband option for Lifeline recipients.

The current monthly household subsidy is $9.25. While this may not sound like much, when leveraged with a program administered by the Oregon Public Utility Commission offering an additional $3.50, low-income Oregonians begin to feel some needed relief.

It’s also important to note that in addition to these larger “modernization orders”, the FCC has, throughout the life of the program, taken steps to curb what’s generally referred to as “waste, fraud, and abuse”. Some of this work was certainly necessary, such as ensuring database integrity to safeguard against subsidy duplication for the same household. However, many claims of program abuses have proven wholly unfounded. Therefore, it is completely inappropriate for Chair Pai to upend a program that, for over 35 years, has served as a critical anti-poverty backstop by providing affordable access to telecommunication services.

The FCC proposals are sweeping:

• Eliminate program eligibility for “non-facilities-based providers”. This simply means that resellers (small providers leasing network space from large providers) would no longer be able to participate in the program. The provision would effectively reduce Lifeline’s low-income customer reach by almost two-thirds, leaving millions of Americans and thousands of Oregonians without monthly bill payment relief.
• Eliminate standalone broadband provider eligibility. This provision targets smaller, broadband-only companies in that without also delivering voice service, they would no longer be able to participate in the Lifeline program. This provision strongly favors large national providers.
• Emphasize network expansion via implementation of a funding cap for direct service monies. This may appear positive on the surface, but what it means is that funds historically intended to help low-income customers with their bills would essentially transfer to national service providers in the form of financial incentive to expand their network capacity. Network buildout is a laudable goal, and one that the federal government needs to prioritize – just not on the backs of low-income customers.
• Prioritize rural, rural-tribal, and tribal customers over urban customers, especially with regard to voice service support. Again, this provision may appear positive and, in some respects, it is given that the rural-urban broadband connectivity divide is a growing problem. Yet similar to the previous point, this change would not only represent a drastic mission-shift for the program, it may create unintended social equity issues in urban areas, since a disproportionate number of urban racial and ethnic minority groups live at or below the income threshold for the current Lifeline program.

All told, CUB believes the FCC’s proposal to overhaul Lifeline is less a program overhaul and more a program dismemberment. More than anything, the changes would represent a financial boon to the national service providers and take money out of low-income customers’ pockets. The Lifeline program is the only one of its kind. Its existence and administrative structure allows states like Oregon to supplement the federal subsidy with additional funding and necessary outreach.

If the FCC were to implement the changes described above, only low-income customers would feel the economic consequences. In CUB’s view, this is duplicitous on the part of the FCC and bad public policy. To lend your voice to preserving Lifeline, sign onto CUB’s comments due on January 24.

CUB is also tracking legal challenges to jettisoning Net Neutrality while actively assessing the potential for legislative action in Oregon. Stay tuned for update on these important issues!

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