Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., filed the Expanding Opportunities for Broadband Deployment Act Thursday. It would eliminate a requirement only ISPs designated eligible telecom carriers are eligible for USF. “Millions of Americans still lack access to consistent and reliable Internet service because the broadband infrastructure necessary to serve all households and businesses does not exist,” Butterfield said. “And in urban areas where broadband service is available, there are numerous low-income families that simply cannot afford it.” Reps. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., and Don Young, R-Alaska, filed the Universal Broadband Act last month. HR-6723 would increase the USF contribution base to include all broadband services rather than the existing model that draws support from phone services (see 2005050064). Charter, NCTA and the Wireless ISP Association backed Butterfield’s bill.
Maine and friends can’t save the state’s ISP privacy law, said industry plaintiffs ACA Connects, CTIA, NCTA and USTelecom in a Wednesday reply (in Pacer). “Implicitly acknowledging its frailty, Defendant offers narrowing constructions to correct some of its flaws, simply ignores others, and attempts to backfill the absence of legislative findings with post-hoc rationalizations," the industry groups said in case 1:20-cv-00055. "None of this overcomes the Statute’s insurmountable constitutional and preemption problems.” Public Knowledge and other amici supported Maine's law (see 2006010038).
The digital divide narrowed slightly between whites and others 2017-19, blogged NTIA Associate Administrator-Office of Policy Analysis and Development Evelyn Remaley Wednesday. Data collected with the Census Bureau showed Americans ages 3 and older going online rose a point to 79%. African Americans and Hispanics were 7 points less likely to use the internet than whites, and Asian Americans 4 points less likely. Over the past two decades, Remaley said, "disparities in Internet use based on race and ethnicity have narrowed significantly." Internet use among Americans with family incomes below $25,000 yearly grew three points 2017-19 to 65%, "far short of the 87 percent of those with family incomes of $100,000 or more," the post said.
Colorado senators voted 33-0 Tuesday to pass a telehealth bill (SB-212) that would expand Medicaid reimbursement. It goes next to the House. New Jersey legislators introduced three telemedicine bills Monday. A-4215 would extend the state’s emergency telehealth law and executive order until 90 days following the end of the COVID-19 crisis. S-2556 would extend them for another year afterward. S-2559 would require reimbursement for telehealth to be equal to reimbursement for equivalent in-person services. Current law requires telehealth reimbursement up to the amount of in-person services.
A pair of net neutrality bills resurfaced in New Jersey after stalling in the Senate last year. Rep. Nicholas Chiaravalloti (D) introduced AB-4217 Monday to direct the Board of Public Utilities to stop ISPs that don’t follow open internet principles from installing infrastructure on poles or underground, and AB-4219 to prohibit public contracts with ISPs that violate net neutrality. The Assembly passed the 2019 versions of the bills last year.
The most recent winners in the Connect America Fund phase II auction must submit letters of credit and bankruptcy code opinion letters from legal counsel in each state in which they have winning bids by June 18, several FCC bureaus said in a public notice in Friday's Daily Digest.
COVID-19 and data security/privacy have something in common when it comes to federalism and states' rights, said Colorado's attorney general. AG Phil Weiser (D) equated the federal response to the pandemic and to privacy issues as a second-best scenario, where states are taking the lead. "In an ideal world, we’d have a first-rate national response to the pandemic where testing capability was developed by the federal government and the states were working collaboratively following the lead of the feds. That’s not the world we’re in right now," he said on a Technology Policy Institute podcast emailed to stakeholders Thursday and taped a week earlier. "We’re in the theory of the second best where the states have effectively been on their own and have been able to, in many cases, including Colorado, reasonably rise to this challenge. That’s actually the case with, right now, data privacy and data security." With no federal privacy law, Weiser described a "vacuum. And so states are now doing their own data privacy." On antitrust generally, the official said enforcement has been too lax. "We have seen concentration in almost every industry such that our economy is more concentrated now than it’s probably ever been," Weiser said. The attorney general hasn't "taken a position on a federal bill" in terms of what specifics he seeks, his spokesperson emailed us. "He does think federal action is needed." As of Sept. 1, 2018, Colorado law required "covered persons and entities to take reasonable steps to protect" personal identifying information. And data security breaches require "detailed notice to consumers and, in certain circumstances, notice to the Attorney General," says the AG's office.
California privacy regulations are "capricious, unfair, and unnecessary," said Software & Information Industry Association President Jeff Joseph Wednesday. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) submitted final rules Monday, barely beating a deadline for implementing CCPA to the Office of Administrative Law for OK less than a month before July 1 enforcement (see 2006020062). The rules force “businesses to either comply with an unconstitutional regulatory requirement or risk expensive enforcement actions to vindicate their constitutional rights,” Joseph said. “Blanket regulation of non-governmentally sourced publicly available information unconstitutionally interferes with protected speech.” Becerra’s office didn’t comment.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) will soon decide whether to sign broadband and telehealth bills cleared recently by the legislature, a spokesperson emailed Monday. The House voted 95-0 Sunday to concur with the Senate-amended HB-530 to require health insurance coverage of telehealth services (see 2005280039). The same day, no House members voted against concurring with Senate amendments to two broadband resolutions that don’t need gubernatorial OK. HCR-77 and HCR-78 ask a state commission to detect public and private barriers to broadband expansion and make broadband maps. Louisiana electric cooperatives might seek veto of SB-406 at the governor’s desk that would set rules for co-op broadband buildouts (see 2005290039)
Louisiana electric cooperatives might seek veto of a state bill that sets rules for co-op broadband builds. The Senate voted 34-0 Thursday to concur with House changes to SB-406 Wednesday. Co-ops oppose language restricting them to unserved parts of their territories (see 2005270037). Association of Louisiana Electric Cooperatives CEO Jeff Arnold is polling members “to see if they support a veto request,” he emailed us Friday. The bill limits “cooperatives, affiliates and third parties from using cooperative easements and attachments to only serving the unserved,” he said. “I don’t know of any business model that works under this restriction.” The office of Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) didn’t comment Friday on whether he would sign the bill that's now before him.