Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

28. Federal Communications Commission · Minor

Have the FCC review its broadband programs, including the USF

Partially done

856 28. Federal Communications Commission

“Similarly, the next Administration should ask the FCC to launch a review of its existing broadband programs, including the different components of the USF , with the goal of avoiding duplication, improving efficiency of existing programs, and saving taxpayer money.”

What has happened

  1. Partially done

    With the NPRM on Maximizing Efficiencies in Universal Service Administration (FCC 26-52, WC Docket 26-173) the review now spans the Fund itself as well as its programs: it asks about USAC's administration processes and the Commission's oversight of them, USAC's role and responsibilities, the operating costs of administering the Fund, and the effect of USAC's Board — the Quote's "improving efficiency … and saving taxpayer money" almost word for word. It joins the High-Cost Program modernization NPRM (2026-06-05) and the E-Rate review NPRM (2026-08-14), which together cover the remaining USF components. Every one of them is an open proceeding: nothing has been consolidated, eliminated or saved yet.

  2. Partially done

    The FCC opened the first of the component reviews, on Lifeline: an NPRM seeking comment on ensuring Lifeline support reaches eligible low-income Americans, protecting the program's funding from waste, fraud and abuse, and updating and streamlining the rules. One component of four, and a proposal rather than a finding.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • Read the FCC 26-52 synopsis at govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-08-31/html/2026-17761.htm. It is the document that turns four separate program rulemakings into something that can fairly be called a review of the Universal Service Fund.
  • The reviews were opened by the Commission on its own motion. Nothing on an allowlisted source shows the Administration asking the FCC to launch them, which is the literal form of the Quote; progress is measured on the object, and the object is the review.
  • Two more strands of the same effort, adopted rather than proposed: the E-Rate competitive bidding Report and Order (2026-10011, 2026-05-19) and Maximizing Efficiencies aside, the Form 477 / broadband data collection order folded into Delete, Delete, Delete (2026-12766, 2026-06-24).
  • Held at partial rather than done because the reviews are open and none has produced an efficiency, a consolidation or a saving. The alternative reading — the Quote asks only that a review be launched, and four have been — is raised for the ticket 26 consistency pass.
  • The FCC is moving the other way on the neighboring major ask #2216’s universal service half: it defended the Fund’s contribution mechanism at the Supreme Court in FCC v. Consumers’ Research (2025-06-27). Reviewing the Fund is not eliminating it, and these are different asks.
  • No USF litigation to record (checked 2026-09-03, read-queue ticket 04). Three petitions for review of FCC orders sat unexplained in the bulk docket snapshot and were suspected of bearing on this item. They do not. 9th Cir. Nos. 26-3946 (The Utility Reform Network, et al. v. FCC, 2026-06-18) and 26-3955 (California Public Utilities Commission v. FCC, 2026-06-22) both challenge FCC 26-19, 91 Fed. Reg. 20,913 (2026-04-20), the copper-retirement and network modernization order; D.C. Cir. No. 26-1062 (Broadband Communications Association of Pennsylvania, et al. v. FCC, 2026-03-21) challenges the Media Bureau’s Nexstar–TEGNA approval and was terminated 2026-07-09. None challenges a universal service order. Recorded here so nobody reopens them; the same note sits on #2209.
Action
create
Object
FCC review of existing broadband programs and the Universal Service Fund
ID
2215