Two very real Universal Service Fund (USF) problems need to be addressed: funding and spending. The way the program is funded is inefficient, unsustainable, and regressive. Regardless of the judicial outcome, the tax that the court declared unconstitutional is both inefficient, by taxing a small, price-sensitive, declining base, and regressive, with a higher proportional burden falling on those least able to afford it. The program spends too much money on the wrong things. The High Cost Fund in particular, which accounts for about half of total spending, is outdated and wasteful. Research shows that it has not made much of a difference in connecting households despite billions of dollars spent every year for the past 25 years. Additionally, new terrestrial and satellite fixed wireless technologies challenge the fundamental idea of “high cost” areas since satellite in particular entails the same costs everywhere. The Universal Service Administrative Corporation (USAC)—the organization the Federal Communications Commission created to manage the USF—has increased its administrative expenses from $105 million in 2010 to $204 million in 2020 to $365 million in 2023 while program expenditures stayed fairly constant. Solutions to both of these problems are straightforward: 1) Expand the tax base. Funding the program from general government revenues, as Congress did with the Affordable Connectivity Program, is more efficient and less regressive than the current system. 2) Reduce the size of the fund substantially. Satellite and wireless providers are likely to be able serve higher cost areas with much lower, if any, subsidy. 

The Biden-Harris Administration is announcing two new actions that will help build more projects, more quickly.

• The Bureau of Land Management is announcing a roadmap to support expanded solar energy production by making renewable energy siting and permitting on America’s public lands more efficient. This action will help expedite reviews of solar projects by steering them to areas with high solar potential and low wildlife and land conflicts, and ease burdens on solar developers.
• The Environmental Protection Agency is announcing the conditional approval of a new rule which will allow for new offsets to create clean air credits in Maricopa County. Companies with vehicle fleets can now generate credits by replacing or retrofitting diesel-burning vehicles with electric vehicles. Manufacturers or other new emitters can then purchase those credits to balance out their future emissions.

Past Biden-Harris actions to reform federal permitting have already delivered real results, including in broadband, where agencies are processing more than twice as many permits for high-speed internet projects on federal lands and property as they did under the prior Administration. Across the federal government, agencies are processing more than twice as many permits for high-speed internet projects on federal lands and property as they did under the prior Administration. NTIA has established and adopted a total of 36 new categorical exclusions to streamline processes, including for historic preservation and threatened and endangered species compliance for broadband.

The Newsom Administration, local officials, and Arcadian Infracom announced the groundbreaking of a crucial segment of California’s Middle-Mile Broadband Network. The Capitol Route groundbreaking in Natomas celebrates California’s work in building the nation’s largest open-access, Middle-Mile Broadband Network. The groundbreaking is a milestone in a 256-mile route of new open-access broadband fiber spanning from San Jose in Silicon Valley through the Sierra Nevada Mountains to Carson City, Nevada. This essential infrastructure is a vital part of California’s comprehensive approach to closing the digital divide. With 1,666 miles of active installation and construction, the California Department of Technology is working to deliver over 8,000 miles of broadband fiber — enabling more affordable and reliable broadband access for many of the most unserved and underserved communities in the state. In the next three months, the Middle-Mile Broadband Network will kick off construction on 33 segments spanning over 1,590 miles – building toward an estimated 3,256 miles in construction by the end of 2024.

The Federal Communications Commission adopted new rules to enable initial drone operations in the 5 GHz spectrum band for wireless communications necessary to safely control the flights of uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS). The use of UAS in the United States is growing quickly: during this decade, UAS operations are expected to triple in terms of the number of devices and see the market expand into in the tens of billions of dollars. These tools are aiding in search and rescue missions, helping farmers, inspecting infrastructure, delivering medicine, and even gathering news. This action establishes initial service rules that allow operators to obtain direct frequency assignments in a portion of the 5030-5091 MHz band for non-networked operations. The new rules rely on dynamic frequency management systems to manage and coordinate access to the spectrum and enable its safe and efficient use. These management systems provide requesting operators with temporary frequency assignments to support UAS control link communications with a level of reliability suitable for operations in controlled airspace and other safety-critical circumstances. The rules establish an interim access mechanism in which operators seeking to transmit in the band first submit a request to the Federal Aviation Administration for deconfliction and approval, and, upon FAA authorization, complete an online registration form with the FCC. The interim mechanism will be made available to operators after the rules become effective and the FCC has announced by Public Notice that it will begin accepting registrations.   

At Dymally High School in South Los Angeles, test scores are slightly up, fights are down and teachers can better focus on instruction—and Principal Darvina Bradley credits her campus cellphone ban. This scene is one California lawmakers are hoping to replicate with their approval of statewide school cellphone restrictions. The Phone-Free Schools Act, a bipartisan bill introduced by Assemblyman Josh Hoover (R-Folsom), sailed through the Legislature and requires all public schools to devise a policy by July 1, 2026, to limit or prohibit smartphones during the school day. It would force distracted, smartphone-obsessed students to do something many haven’t been willing to do on their own: Put their phones away in class. The legislation is expected to be signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who urged educators as the academic year began to enact restrictions, citing the “mental health, scholastic, and social risks” of phone use in classrooms.