FCC Puts an End to California Opting Out of Federal Lifeline Verification
A state law barring the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) from sharing information about Lifeline program subscribers with other government agencies, including immigration authorities, means the state can no longer do its own Lifeline subscriber verifications, according to the FCC. The Wireline Bureau ordered Thursday that the state could no longer opt out of using the National Lifeline Accountability Database (NLAD) federal verification system. "Going forward, federal processes will be used to conduct eligibility verifications and perform duplicate checks for federal Lifeline program applicants in California."
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Under AB-1303, signed into law in October by California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), CPUC staff, Lifeline's third-party administrator and its service providers also can't require applicants and subscribers to provide Social Security numbers to take part in Lifeline.
The FCC said California no longer using Social Security numbers "impairs the efficacy of California eligibility verification and duplicate detection procedures to the point where they no longer meet the standard of being as robust as the Commission’s processes." It said California had been allowed to opt out of NLAD verification on the condition that its processes would be as vigorous as those at the federal level. In addition, the bureau said it has other concerns about the procedures that California uses to protect against waste, fraud and abuse, with those concerns being a "separate and independent basis" for its action.
"California is all for sending your taxpayers dollars to people here illegally," FCC Chairman Brendan Carr wrote on social media. He said AB-1303 "makes it effectively impossible for the FCC to ensure that the federal Lifeline dollars we administer go to their intended recipients. The FCC is stopping California’s abuse today."
U.S. Senate Commerce Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said on social media Thursday that Carr "is standing up to [Newsom's] outrageous government overreach in California. Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to fund smartphones for illegal aliens." Cruz wrote Carr a letter last month, saying the FCC "has a legal obligation to ensure that federal benefits it administers, such as the Lifeline program, are not given to illegal aliens. This responsibility is especially important given that the [USF] tax on Americans’ phone bills now exceeds 38%, making the prudent stewardship of every dollar critical."
In a separate letter last month to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, Cruz wrote that "our nation’s law enforcement officers, including [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents, risk their lives every day to keep Americans safe." He urged DOJ "to hold states and cities accountable when they encourage illegal entry into the United States and violate federal law."
The FCC order will increase phone service costs for hundreds of thousands of low-income Californians, the Utility Reform Network (TURN) emailed us. It noted that since the 1980s, the state has operated its own Lifeline program, which is exclusively funded by California customers and provides discounts on the monthly phone bills of low-income households. AB-1303 gives the CPUC "the flexibility to ensure that all eligible households can apply for California Lifeline," TURN said. It also gives consumers "more control over who their data is shared with."
The legislation doesn't provide a secondary method to access state Lifeline funds without verification, TURN argued. "The FCC’s decision to no longer trust California to do its own eligibility verification means that customers will have to be separately reviewed by each program, adding a new level of bureaucracy to the enrollment process," the group said. "The federal government's political disdain for California seems to be the driving force behind this order, which will only result in increasing the cost of phone service in both rural and urban areas."
The CPUC and Newsom's office didn't comment.