press releases
For Immediate Release: March 31, 2016
Contact: Regina L. Davis, 202-898-9382, rdavis@naruc.org
The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners has issued the statements below in response to today’s Federal Communications Commission’s proposed Lifeline broadband order:
NARUC has been pressing the FCC to expand the Lifeline program to cover broadband for years. While the FCC deserves kudos for that expansion, NARUC’s members remain very concerned with the national designation procedure outlined in today’s meeting. That one provision definitively undermines the program and the service offered to qualifying consumers.
—NARUC President Travis Kavulla of Montana
NARUC is still reviewing the draft to inform its next steps with respect to the FCC’s order. It is clear, that a carrier choosing the national designation bypasses the consumer subsidies in States with matching programs, expanded State service quality oversight, and State compliance audits. In short, taking these “State cops” off the beat can only reduce oversight and open the program to more waste, fraud and abuse.
—Chairman Chris Nelson of South Dakota, Chair of the NARUC Committee on Telecommunications
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NARUC is a non-profit organization founded in 1889 whose members include the governmental agencies that are engaged in the regulation of utilities and carriers in the fifty States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. NARUC's member agencies regulate telecommunications, energy, and water utilities. NARUC represents the interests of State public utility commissions before the three branches of the Federal government.
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