Russ Fulcher Presses FCC Chair Rosenworcel For ‘Conduit’ In Nationwide Historic Preservation Efforts

4 months ago

On Tuesday, Rep. Russ Fulcher (R-ID) questioned FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel on NEPA during a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing.

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Transcript

00:00experts to review that, be thoughtful about it, and engage with our global counterparts is valuable

00:04and it's valuable for our geopolitical leadership. And I second that, Madam Chairwoman. I yield back.

00:10The gentleman's time has expired and the chair now recognizes the gentleman from Idaho's First

00:15District for five minutes for questions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Carr, I paid particular

00:21attention to your comments just a few minutes ago regarding the importance and the beneficial

00:30aspects of speeding up the process of approval across federal lands with NEPA,

00:36National Historic Preservation Act. And I actually have legislation that would do that,

00:41and that's in the works. So hopefully that will make some headway with that. But

00:47in a previous conversation, you had talked about a federal lands desk, if I recall correctly,

00:56and the possibility of a conduit there that might speed things up. And so this was not part of my

01:04original line of questioning, but is there anything further? It's been a while since this

01:09conversation has taken place. Is there anything further developments on the federal lands desk?

01:15Is this something that we need to take further steps for here? I think we need to continue to

01:19move forward. There's a lot of infrastructure ideas that we can do. For instance, we streamlined a lot

01:23of rules at the FCC that apply to small cells, which is one type of technology. We need to

01:28extend those to more technologies. And the federal lands desk, I think, would help as well, because

01:33Congress has taken a lot of stabs at streamlining the permitting process for federal lands. But a

01:37lot of these agencies like Forest and otherwise, they have important day jobs as well, and they

01:41just don't get around to this quickly enough. So I think we had a place at the FCC where folks

01:45could come and help dislodge some of those applications. I think it could be helpful.

01:49So it's particularly pertinent to my state. We've got two-thirds of land mass approximately

01:55where that's an issue. I've also heard about backlogs as a concern, specifically within BLM

02:03Forest Service. Are you hearing anything like that that might be

02:09slowing down the process or the channels? We hear about this constantly. I've visited

02:14places all across the West where you'll go to a lay-down yard, an outdoor warehouse, and they'll

02:19have multiple antennas sitting there, many, many miles of conduits sitting there. So the hard part

02:24of getting all that equipment out there and purchasing it is done. They're not just sitting

02:27there waiting on approvals from the government to get out there and build it. And I think that's a

02:32real big problem. The further west you go, the higher percentage of federal lands. If you pick

02:37a spot to build and it just happens to be federal lands, it can take you two times longer than if

02:42that plot of land happened to be privately owned. We've got to close that gap. Appreciate that. Chair

02:46Rosenworcel, did you want to make a comment on that? Yeah, I just want to acknowledge this is

02:49a good point. Across the country, about one-third of our land is owned by federal authorities.

02:54It is the least built-out land when it comes to communications. And I believe it was in the

02:58Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act that Congress required the GSA to set up a uniform form

03:04for all of our federal agencies when a provider wants to approach them because they want some

03:08construction. I think that form is called Form 299. But the deadlines on that form are long.

03:15They can take 270 days to respond. Just to be clear, the FCC's deadlines for states and localities

03:22are 90 days and 150 days. I think we should expect a faster response time from our federal

03:28authorities. And I'd encourage you to look into the status of Form 299. Appreciate that. Appreciate

03:32that very much. Thank you. I'd like to shift gears just a little bit. This has been touched on as

03:37well. But I hear feedback on it. I want to ask Commissioner Carr if he can expound on this a

03:43little bit. This is regarding the effect of the Title II proposal and the impacts on small and

03:49rural providers. We have a lot of those in my state. But I'm hearing the possibility of price

03:56controls. That's a concern in the industry. And the potential impact on these smaller and rural

04:03providers. I want to get your feedback on that. Is that a real concern? And what should we be doing

04:11about this? Thanks. I think price controls as a policy matter is the absolute wrong direction

04:18because we need to be attracting billions of dollars across the country into these networks.

04:22And there's a risk out there. The FCC and its digital equity order opens the door to rate

04:27regulation at the federal level, even though it disavows it in the separate Title II decision.

04:31But you're seeing a number of states, New York being an example, that are trying

04:34to impose price controls on their own. Similarly, you see the Commerce Department,

04:39the Biden administration, pressuring states, Virginia is one example, Tennessee is another,

04:44to adopt price controls, even though the law that you passed here in Congress told Commerce

04:48Department no rate regulation. So there certainly is this latent and growing effort to impose it.

04:54And it's a policy and legal mistake as well. Thank you for that, Chair Rosenworcel.

05:00This has got to be really quick. And I can follow up with a written question as well. But can you

05:05speak very quickly to the possibility of improving the process of adding entities to the FCC's

05:13covered list? And again, the authority was given by Congress to

Russ Fulcher Presses FCC Chair Rosenworcel For ‘Conduit’ In Nationwide Historic Preservation Efforts

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