WASHINGTON-President Bush’s proposal to overhaul a federally mandated Internet discount program for schools and libraries ran into opposition on Capitol Hill last week, complicating administration efforts to get a sweeping education reform bill through Congress this year.
The reaction was swift and direct, especially from two key lawmakers who helped to write the schools and libraries program into the 1996 telecom act. One former FCC chairman said the Bush plan could kill discounted Internet connections for education, known as the E-rate.
“I will fight it aggressively,” said Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.). Rockefeller said the Bush E-rate proposal “would be a grave mistake” and is “a major step backwards.”
Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), who worked with Rockefeller and former Sens. James Exon (D-Neb.) and Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.) in crafting the E-rate provision, agreed.
“I am very concerned about block grants,” said Snowe, adding she has made her views known to the Bush administration.
“I would oppose it,” agreed Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
Other lawmakers on the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees the telecom industry, were caught completely off guard. Several said they had not seen Bush’s E-rate plan and therefore could not comment.
Bush’s E-rate initiative, included in a education reform package the president sent to Congress last Tuesday, would scrap the way the program is administered and funded by turning it into a block grant program that lives side by side with other Department of Education technology programs.
Under such an arrangement, E-rate funding would depend on the whim of lawmakers every year for appropriations.
The Bush administration was vague on details. “I think as far as the funding stream is concerned-I mean, you’ll see more about this in the budget. What we’re addressing is the sort of spending stream, which right now is very prescriptive and has many silos as far as E-rate. And what we’re recommending here is that schools and states have a lot more latitude with respect to how they use their technology funds,” said a senior administration official.
In addition to Internet access, the Bush plan would allow E-rate funds to be used for software purchases, wiring and technology infrastructure and teacher training.
Today, the Universal Service Administrative Co.-a private corporation-runs the E-rate program with money collected directly from wireless carriers and other telecom service providers under rules established by the Federal Communications Commission. Currently, the E-rate program has a $2.25 billion funding level. Over its life, $6 billion has been paid by telecom carriers (and passed on to subscribers) to give schools and libraries Internet connections. School districts match dollars spent by telecom carriers.
“The Bush plan attempts to target schools that need the funds in order to provide them flexibility without duplication. We hope this leads to the use of multiple technologies and possibly wireless access,” said Travis Larson, a spokesman for the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association.
The E-rate program, while having bipartisan support because it connects more than 80,000 of the nation’s schools and libraries to the Information Superhighway, has been a lightning rod for criticism from congressional Republicans and, early on, by the General Accounting Office.
The program was championed by former Vice President Gore, who vowed to connect every school to the Internet by 2000, and by two previous Democratic FCC chairmen, William Kennard and Reed Hundt.
“What they’re trying to do is eliminate a federal program that guarantees bandwidth in every classroom in the country,” said Hundt. “They’re trying to do an end-run around the jurisdiction of the Commerce Committee. … They’re trying to break something that’s fixed.”
Kennard did not return calls for comment.
In September 1996, FCC Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth told Congress he believed the agency’s implementation of E-rate “likely runs afoul” of the law.
In June 1998, Michael Powell, an FCC commissioner who last week was named chairman by Bush, said in a dissenting statement that the agency should “suspend collections for the Schools and Libraries program temporarily in order to resolve the funding questions that loom over all aspects of universal service.”
Powell declined to comment.
Hundt said had Powell been subjected to the Senate confirmation process insofar as his appointment to head the FCC, lawmakers likely would have elicited a promise not to kill the E-rate program.
