28. Federal Communications Commission · Notable · Needs Congress
Require Big Tech to contribute to the Universal Service Fund
Printed page 850 28. Federal Communications Commission
“To put the FCC’s universal service program on a stable footing, Congress should require Big Tech companies to start contributing an appropriate amount.”
What has happened
- Not started
Congress did not broaden the USF contribution base. The bill that would — the Lowering Broadband Costs for Consumers Act of 2025, which directs the FCC to require edge providers to contribute — was introduced in the Senate as S. 1651 on 2025-05-07 and in the House as H.R. 4032 on 2025-06-17; both were referred to committee and neither has had further action. No public law in the window touches USF contributions. The FCC did not act either, and could not without the statute: `conditions[term]="contribution base"` for FCC documents since 2025-01-20 returns zero, and its live universal service proceedings are about administration and program design — WC Docket 26-173 on USAC's administration and operating costs (FCC 26-52, 2026-08-31), the high-cost program (2026-06-05), Lifeline (2026-04-03) and E-Rate (2026-08-14) — not about who pays in.
No action found yet. This entry is the starting point, not a finding.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
A Requires-Congress ask at the bottom rung: bills introduced and referred is not started (playbook §3b). Worth noting that the contribution mechanism itself survived the window intact — the Supreme Court upheld the existing USF contribution scheme against a nondelegation challenge in FCC v. Consumers’ Research, No. 24-354, on 2025-06-27, reversing the Fifth Circuit (https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/606us2r64_8nj9.pdf, held: “The universal-service contribution scheme does not violate the nondelegation doctrine”) — which removes the main threat to the status quo without moving the ask, since the ask is to add Big Tech to the base, not to preserve it.
The Mandate itself records that “conservatives are not unanimous” on expanding the
contribution base, with some preferring appropriations. The item is not flagged contested
in the frontmatter, which the consistency pass may want to revisit: the dissent is inside the
chapter’s own text, in the paragraph immediately after the Quote.
Related: #2216 (major, page 857) tracks the elimination of universal service requirements and is partial on the media-ownership half only; universal service is untouched there too.
- Action
- expand
- Object
- Universal Service Fund contribution base
- ID
- 2198