FCC: Inspector General Sought Delayed Release of Lifeline Notice of Apparent Liability

Turns out it was the Office of the Inspector General that asked the Federal Communications Commission not to issue its Lifeline fraud notice of apparent liability until April 1, the day after a deeply divided commission voted on proposed Lifeline reforms that did not include the cap on the program's spending Republican Commissioners had been pushing for. That is according to FCC Press Secretary Kim Hart. “The timing of the enforcement action was in no way related to the timing of the vote on the program modernization. The Office of the Inspector General requested the investigation not be made public before April 1.”

A Republican-pushed compromise on reforms of the Universal Service Fund (USF) Lifeline low income subsidy that had included a cap had collapsed the day of the meeting. Then, the next day, the FCC released a proposed $51 million fine for an alleged Lifeline abuser. Total Call Mobile, who the FCC said had enrolled "tens of thousands of duplicate and ineligible consumers." FCC Commission Ajit Pai said in a partial dissent from that Notice of Apparent Liability: "Commissioners were told that the Notice of Apparent Liability could not be released or publicly discussed until April 1, 2016, conveniently one day after the Commission was scheduled to expand the Lifeline program to broadband. That’s not right." That led to a story in the Washington Free Beacon under the headline "FCC kept 'Obamaphone' fraud under wraps until after it expanded program." Hart said the FCC had reached out to the Beacon to provide it with the update about the IG, not the chairman's office, requesting the timing of the release. The IG does not comment, but it often coordinates with other agencies, like DOJ, which suggests other agencies could also be looking into USF abuses.