Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Cruz Releases Budget Reconciliation Text

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-TX) unveiled his legislative directives for Senate Republicans’ budget reconciliation bill. The Commerce Committee’s reconciliation language will reduce deficits by more than $40 billion over a decade, rescind more than $1.4 billion in wasteful spending, revitalize the American economy, improve the nation’s transportation infrastructure, strengthen national security, and bolster domestic innovation and manufacturing. The legislation would restore the Federal Communications Commission's spectrum auction authority through 2034 and would require the FCC to auction at least 800 megahertz—500 megahertz of Federal and 300 megahertz of non-Federal spectrum—within an eight-year period. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the net proceeds (a net increase in offsetting receipts) will contribute to deficit reduction of $85.0 billion over the ten-year budget window. The legislation would also rescind the unobligated balances of the Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund, which was first authorized in the William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Act for Fiscal Year 2021. In August 2022, Congress appropriated $1.5 billion to the fund in the CHIPS and Science Act (P.L. 117-167) for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to distribute as grants for advanced communications research. A recent U.S. Department of Commerce Inspector General report showed that the NTIA has been unable to administer the program to reach its statutory objectives.

The legislation would provide $500 million to the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information for Fiscal Year 2025 to carry out the Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program. This section would allow BEAD funding to be used to construct and deploy infrastructure for the provision of artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems. This section would require that no funds made available to carry out this section may be obligated to an eligible entity (re: a State) or a political subdivision of such entity that receives funds under this section unless such entity temporarily pauses the enforcement of any law or regulation of that entity or political subdivision that limits, restricts, or otherwise regulates artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems entered into interstate commerce over the next 10 years. Such pause would not apply to a law or regulation that: 

• Has a primary purpose and effect of removing legal impediments to or facilitate the deployment of such models or systems,
• Has a primary purpose and effect of streamlining licensing, permitting, routing, zoning, procurement, or reporting procedures in a manner that facilitates the adoption of such models or systems,  
• Does not impose any substantive design, performance, data-handling, documentation, civil liability, taxation, fee, or other requirement on such models or systems unless such requirement is imposed by Federal law or imposed under a generally applicable law,
• Does not impose a fee or bond unless (1) such fee or bond is reasonable and cost-based; and (2) under such fee or bond such models or systems are treated in the same manner as other models and systems that perform comparable functions.