Upcoming policy issue

With the rise of China, the US economic and technology environment has fundamentally and inexorably changed.

Public officials in Ohio fear that language in the state's proposed $75 billion budget could put municipal broadband internet services out of business. The language, which appears aimed at protecting private broadband providers, was inserted without prior public discussion during recent Ohio Senate deliberations on the state's two-year budget. Local officials say this would endanger planned upgrades to public safety services, improved school and library services, plus business and economic development tools.

The National Lifeline Association urged the Federal Communications Commission to expeditiously release a Public Notice seeking comment on the association's Petition for Rulemaking so that others can comment on it and the FCC can build a record to take the necessary actions to transition the Lifeline program into a program that is post-Emergency Broadband Benefit Program ready. The FCC should not work in a linear fashion, but rather consider important improvements to the Lifeline program now so that those improvements can be in place when the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program funding runs

There is a lot of momentum in Washington (DC) and in state governments right now to improve the adoption of broadband by addressing the issue of affordability for low-income communities. To decide what policies will do the most good for low-income households seeking broadband connectivity, it’s important to first understand the existing marketplace.

Sen Roger Wicker (R-MS) introduced the Promoting Rights and Online Speech Protections to Ensure Every Consumer is Heard (PRO-SPEECH) Act (S.2301). This bill would establish baseline protections to prohibit Big Tech from engaging in unfair, deceptive, or anti-competitive practices that limit or control consumers’ speech. The PRO-SPEECH Act aims to:

If Congress passes comprehensive privacy legislation, it will need to delegate a federal agency to enforce the law and conduct rulemaking. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has used its general consumer protection authority to bring enforcement actions against companies violating user privacy, and has therefore been considered the de facto privacy agency. However, three bills have challenged this assumption and would create a new agency to enforce privacy law rather than relying on the FTC. This report compares the new agencies in three legislative proposals to one another and to the FTC.

Ohio’s attorney general filed a lawsuit asking a judge to rule that Google is a public utility. Ohio said that it is the first state in the country to bring a lawsuit seeking a court declaration that Google is a common carrier subject under state law to government regulation.

President Joe Biden ended a weekslong effort to reach a deal with Senate Republicans on an expansive infrastructure plan, cutting off negotiations that had failed to persuade them to embrace his bid to pour $1 trillion into the nation’s aging public works system and safety-net programs. It was a major setback to Biden’s effort to attract Republican support for his top domestic priority, which had always faced long odds over the size, scope and financing of the package.

There’s a tense fight in Washington between Republicans and Democrats over President Biden’s infrastructure plan, from the amount of funding in it to the very definition of infrastructure. But on the question of addressing the internet and bridging the digital divide, there appears to be resounding agreement that broadband is very, very important and very, very bipartisan. This is a mirage.

The White House told Senate Republicans it is open to reducing its infrastructure proposal down to $1.7 trillion in the hopes of securing a bipartisan deal, but GOP lawmakers signaled they are still disinclined to support a package carrying that price tag. The new offer, described afterward by White House press secretary Jen Psaki, appears to mark a decrease from the total $2.2 trillion President Biden proposed earlier this spring. The new plan is expected to lessen the money available for broadband, and reduce the money set aside for roads and bridges, to bring the president