Lawmakers are butting heads over a provision within the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program that allows states to require low-cost service options from participating service providers. Democrats are calling it an affordability policy. Republicans say it's heavy-handed government regulation. As part of the BEAD planning process, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is considering each state’s definition of a low-cost option, provided that it meets the standards laid out in the program’s statute. NTIA has already approved some state BEAD plans that set $1 as the amount for a required low-income service option. In a May 15 hearing focused on the 2025 budget for NTIA, Reps Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Bob Latta (R-OH), and Frank Pallone (D-NJ) disagreed on whether or not the low-cost requirement should be considered rate regulation.

I have been asked my opinion several times about Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) amnesty—letting RDOF winners walk away from their obligations without big penalties. There is no easy answer to the question. It’s certainly a timely topic, since we are seeing internet service providers (ISPs) walk away from RDOF. There are several good arguments to be made that favor some kind of amnesty. Inflation spiked shortly after the RDOF auction closed, and making it significantly harder for an RDOF winner to build the markets it won in the auction. Another argument that can be made for amnesty is that RDOF was never enough funding to build rural networks. While RDOF wasn’t a grant program, many companies who took the funding treated is as such. Perhaps the best reason to allow RDOF amnesty is that there is a good chance that anybody asking for amnesty might walk away. The immediate issue with RDOF amnesty is the impact it could have on Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grants. It’s completely unfair to states to ask them to toss new locations into the BEAD process at this late date. I believe that at this late stage, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) needs to own the consequences of ISPs abandoning RDOF. The FCC broke RDOF, and whether they allow amnesty or ISPs just walk away, the FCC needs to be the one to fix the problems caused by RDOF defaults.

The House Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Health voted to pass a two-year Medicare telehealth extension along with other legislation that expands reimbursement for health tech. The sponsor of the telehealth extension bill, Rep Buddy Carter (R-GA), said he sees no obstacles to the telehealth extension passing the full committee, nor any significant issues for the Commerce and Ways and Means Committees to come to an agreement on a two-year telehealth extension. Rep Carter already conceded to the Ways and Means Committee by reducing the scope of the bill from a permanent extension down to two years. Members of Telehealth Access for America, a national education campaign, sent a letter to Congressional leadership urging them to extend pandemic-era telehealth waivers that are set to expire at the end of 2024.