Chairman Pai to Congress: Let FCC Lead on Broadband

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai is offering a suggestion to lawmakers: Perhaps forget about loading the Department of Agriculture with cash to subsidize broadband buildout and supply the FCC with those funds instead? “If the goal is to avoid overbuilding and other duplicative efforts, Congress should allocate funding solely to one agency — the FCC, which has long been primarily responsible for promoting broadband deployment in the United States,” Chairman Pai told Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS) following a June 24 oversight hearing. Pai’s recommendation comes as many lawmakers look to USDA as a natural place to run broadband subsidy programs, even as the FCC runs its own universal service subsidy fund of many billions of dollars. House appropriators are this year proposing to expand USDA’s ReConnect broadband program, clearing legislation through the chamber to give the department hundreds of millions of dollars. But the Pai exchange underscores jurisdictional administration jockeying on broadband, which will be worth watching if Congress ever reaches a bigger deal on infrastructure and amid Covid-19 connectivity discussions.