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Vote Thursday

Bipartisan Deal on Transparency Exemption Bill Settles on 250,000-Subscriber Cutoff

House Commerce Committee lawmakers scored a bipartisan deal on the Small Business Broadband Deployment Act (HR-4596) ahead of its Thursday full committee vote, they confirmed Wednesday. The measure would codify the exemption of small businesses from the FCC net neutrality order’s enhanced transparency requirements and cleared the subcommittee earlier this month in a partisan vote, with Democrats objecting to how the original bill defined a small business (see 1602110050). Rep. Dave Loebsack, D-Iowa, and Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., had pledged to negotiate following the subcommittee markup and unveiled a revamped version this week.

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Finally, I’m so pleased we’ve reached a compromise,” Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., said in her opening statement, which was set for delivery at a 5 p.m. initial gathering of committee lawmakers Wednesday. “An informal survey of associations representing small broadband providers suggested that an exemption of the FCC’s enhanced transparency rules for companies with 250,000 or fewer subscribers would adequately address the vast majority of their memberships. The bipartisan amendment offered by Chairman Walden and Rep. Loebsack reflects this data by protecting the nation’s smallest ISPs while continuing to ensure that the majority of consumers receive the full set of benefits promised by the enhanced transparency rules.

Our bill, as amended, would seek to alleviate the burden associated with these requirements,” Walden said in his opening statement. “The ISPs are still subject to the 2010 transparency rules, and customers are still provided with all of the information about their service they have come to expect. By extending the existing exemption, we are giving greater certainty to small businesses seeking to make budgetary and operational decisions in a long-term fashion. We’ve also increased the threshold for the definition of a small business, bringing it closer in line with some of the commission’s previous definitions that were blessed by the Small Business Administration.”

The commission temporarily exempted ISPs with 100,000 or fewer broadband subscribers initially through December, when it then renewed that exemption for another year. The definition used in the original version of the GOP legislation was the SBA's small-ISP definition, which means either fewer than 1,500 employees or fewer than 500,000 subscribers. The committee’s new compromise amendment text shows a modification of the small-business size to those ISPs with not more than 250,000 subscribers. The deal also included a sunset provision of five years and would require the FCC to produce a report within 180 days of enactment “that contains the recommendations of the Commission (and data supporting such recommendations)” on whether the exemption should be permanent and whether the small business definition should be modified. House lawmakers will vote on the measure at a markup session beginning at 10 a.m. Thursday in 2123 Rayburn.

Stay tuned, stay tuned, never give up faith,” Walden told us earlier Wednesday, winking, before the deal was announced. Walden had been especially frustrated during the subcommittee markup by what he considered abruptly stalled negotiation with Democrats on multiple telecom measures. Earlier Wednesday, Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., acknowledged the tenuous nature of such compromise. Commerce is marking up many measures beyond this one telecom bill, and Upton referred to the “pretty broad, bipartisan support” all of the committee’s bills enjoy, adding that he suspected “the markup will go pretty fast.” But when asked about the telecom measure, Upton paused. “Oh, that one may not,” he told us. “But the rest of them, I’m told that the markup itself will be pretty quick."

I am pleased that both sides were able to work across the aisle and come together to cooperate on an agreement that balances important consumer protections with helping small ISPs focus on deploying broadband throughout the country,” Loebsack told us later in a statement.

The GOP staff memo released earlier this week referred to ongoing negotiation on the measure (see 1602230074). The Democratic staff memo, dated Tuesday, outlined the problems with the original draft but made no mention of the compromise that emerged. “The discussion draft could unnecessarily lead to tens of millions of consumers being denied critical information about their Internet service,” the Democratic memo said of the original version, a discussion draft that Walden offered in January and a companion to a Senate bill from last year. “As written, the discussion draft would nearly double the number of consumers without the full protection of the FCC’s transparency rule. A more narrowly tailored definition of small business would better balance the needs of consumers with the needs of truly small businesses.”

Importantly, broadband providers of all sizes will continue to be responsible for following the FCC’s bright line rules against blocking, throttling and paid prioritization, as well as the transparency rules adopted by the FCC in 2010,” Eshoo said. “I urge Members to support the Walden-Loebsack amendment and pass H.R. 4596 as amended.”