Sen Sullivan, Chairman Pai, Subsidies, and FCC Confirmantions

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai will finally meet with Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) to discuss the senator’s longstanding frustrations with how the agency is doling out telecommunications subsidies. At stake: the nominations of Brendan Carr to a full term and Geoffrey Starks to a new term as FCC commissioners. Sen. Sullivan and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) are blocking Carr’s nomination over a fight about how the agency handled a funding request from the Anchorage, Alaska-based General Communications that would provide telecom services to rural health care providers. But concerns go beyond GCI. "This is about broader issues of predictability, transparency, how we’re going to move forward on this writ large in the future,” said Sen. Sullivan. He added that the problems “extend way beyond Alaska” and he mentioned “other senators have expressed concerns about the way his chairmanship is moving on those issues.”

The Senate has scant time to move the blocked FCC nominations in the lame-duck session, and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-SD), who recently won a promotion to GOP whip, says that leadership is trying to ensure the Pai-Sullivan summit goes well. “We’re trying to work with both to see if there’s some arrangement that can be worked out, if there’s some way we can get this resolved so we can move these FCC [nomination],” said Chairman Thune. “So we’re keeping our fingers crossed; hopefully they’ll reach an understanding.”