Senate Appropriations Committee Reviews FCC’s 2016 Budget Request

The Senate Committee on Appropriations’ Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government held a hearing on May 12 to review the Fiscal Year 2016 funding request and budget justification for the Federal Communications Commission. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler testified along with FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai. A fun time was had by all.

As might be expected, network neutrality played a central role during the hearing. In his opening remarks, Subcommittee Chairman John Boozman (R-AK) said, “With the FCC’s embrace of the President’s plan for Internet regulation, the Commission moved farther and farther away from the independence, transparency, and regulatory certainty our nation deserves.” Chairman Boozman also criticized the FCC’s budget proposal which includes a transfer of $25 million from the Universal Service Fund to help offset the costs of FCC oversight of the fund. “Many people in Arkansas think the FCC has forgotten about rural America. Transferring money away from broadband deployment to offset agency spending in DC aggravates that all-too-real perception,” Chairman Boozman said.

Commissioner Pai said he believed that the panel should not provide funds for the FCC to implement new Open Internet/net neutrality rules. “The commission will spend a lot of money and time applying regulations that are wasteful and unnecessary and that are already proving harmful to the American public,” he said. Commissioner Pai also repeated his argument that the order allows the agency to regulate the rates companies can charge for services. But Chairman Wheeler replied, “Our goal is not to have rate regulation,” and the 201b interpretation that some people have said this gives us some kind of ex post authority, I would like to be able to make it clear that it is not a rate-regulation tool,” he said. He demurred when asked whether the rule would allow the FCC to regulate the so-called interconnection rates Internet providers negotiate with the companies that run the backbone of the Internet. Chairman Wheeler also declined to estimate the litigation costs associated with the net neutrality order. He said that any litigation would be handled by the agency internally, rather than by hiring an expensive outside appellate lawyer like former Solicitor General Theodore Olson.