Florida Enacts Pole Attachment Regulations for Electric Cooperatives

On June 5, Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) signed into law HB1221, subjecting rural electric cooperatives to pole attachment regulation by the Florida Public Service Commission (FPSC) if they provide broadband service. Specifically, the law mandates that if an electric cooperative provides broadband service “directly, through an affiliate, or pursuant to an agreement with a third party,” or if the cooperative accepts state or federal funding to expand broadband service to unserved areas in Florida, then the cooperative’s poles will be subject to the FPSC’s pole attachment regulations applicable to investor-owned electric utilities. State regulation of electric cooperatives fills a gap in federal law, which exempts electric cooperatives from federal pole attachment rules and leaves electric cooperatives largely free to impose unreasonable – and often anticompetitive – pole rates and conditions on broadband providers. Without regulations requiring nondiscriminatory pole access, cooperatives could (and sometimes do) favor their own broadband service by, among other things, imposing onerous rates and requirements on competing broadband providers that rely on attachments to the cooperatives’ poles. HB1221 also grants the FPSC access to an electric cooperative’s books and records to the extent necessary to enforce the pole attachment rules.