Rep. Stupak predicts no changes to Universal Service Fund will occur in 2010

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) on Tuesday predicted lawmakers would not follow through on their plans this year to create a fund that would expand broadband access nationwide.

The FCC hoped to create that program, called the "Connect America Fund," from money put aside from the old Universal Service Fund, which is tasked with expanding telephone access across the country.

But while Stupak supports that key revision, he told the American Cable Association in a speech Tuesday the new fund would not happen this year, in part because of likely Senate inaction.

"The FCC has announced its plan to convert the USF program into a 'Connect America Fund' that supports broadband construction, much in the same fashion as the current recovery package and the proposed Boucher-Terry legislation," Stupak said of the proposal, pitched as part of the commission's newly released National Broadband Plan.

"And the Senate is doing what it does best: nothing," he said.

"Chairman Boucher may disagree with me, but given the short legislative calendar, I do not believe we will enact USF reform this Congress, but that legislative action will be completed next year," concluded Stupak, the chairman of the House Rural Caucus' task force on telecommunications.

Despite Stupak's assertion, efforts remain underway to transform the Universal Service Fund into something that permits that money to be used for broadband expansion. The program is one of many the FCC hopes to launch in the coming months in its quest to expand high-speed Internet to 90 percent of U.S. households by 2020.

FCC commissioners began discussing the new "Connect America Fund" during their open meeting on Wednesday, during which support for the change seemed high. At the same time, Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, has forged ahead with legislation that would authorize such a change.

However, those efforts are moot unless the Senate approaches the issue with similar speed and intensity, which Stupak predicted the upper chamber would not. Still, he stressed the importance of a new broadband fund on Tuesday, telling ACA summit attendees it was crucial for growth.

"Updating the USF through legislation will greatly assist the FCC in modernizing the fund from a voice service program of the past into a broadband support program for the future as envisioned in the National Broadband Plan," Stupak said Tuesday.