WASHINGTON-The House Commerce Committee is drafting a telecommunications reform bill to be circulated among lawmakers and the telecom industry in May, but the document will not deal with universal-service reform, a key staffer told a gathering of telecom lawyers Tuesday.
“The bill being drafted will not address universal service. The committee wants to address universal service in a bill later this year,” said Brendon Weiss, legislative director for Vito Fosella (R-N.Y.).
Weiss replaced Bud Albright, chief of staff for the House Commerce Committee, at a continuing legal education seminar sponsored by the Federal Communications Bar Association. When making his remarks, Weiss read directly from notes given to him by committee staff.
“My understanding is that they are going to try and keep them completely separate,” said Weiss during the question and answer session responding to a question regarding whether the House Commerce bill will have any universal-service aspect to it.
Weiss said that “the big four-the name the staffers have given themselves” are negotiating on draft language with the goal of having the chairmen and ranking members of the House telecommunications subcommittee and House Commerce Committee co-sponsor the bill.
“Everything is subject to being pulled or added at the last minute,” said Weiss.
The universal-service fund was created to allow rural Americans to have comparable services at comparable rates to those paid by people living in cities.
The universal-service system was set up in the 1930s to bring telecommunications services to high-cost areas by using long-distance revenues. The system was complicated when the Bell system broke up in the 1980s, but was codified into the Communications Act in 1996. Congress at that time made it possible for all telecom providers to receive funds if they served high-cost areas.
Now with many consumers using mobile phones and Internet telephony to make long-distance calls, less money is going into the system at the same time that additional providers-mostly wireless carriers that have taken the second-line business from wireline carriers-have begun taking money from the fund.
Leaving universal service out of telecommunications reform surprised most in the room, especially since it is widely believed that the Senate telecom-reform bill will focus on universal service.
“I think it will be difficult to keep universal service out of the discussion,” said Cheryl Leanza of the National League of Cities.
