Source: http://www.fcc.gov/document/joseph-m-hill-v-fcc-usa-no-12-60070-5th-cir
Timestamp: 2015-03-05 15:12:53
Document Index: 54797666

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 151', '§ 254', '§ 254', '§ 254', '§ 254', '§ 54']

rate funds, notwithstanding the violations of the FCC’s competitive bidding rules, which were undisputed. In the alternative, Lakehills sought a waiver of the rule requiring that funds be withheld and recovered. On November 28, 2011, the Commission denied Lakehills’s request for review, affirmed USAC’s decision to rescind funding, and denied Lakehills’s waiver request. Lakehills has appealed the 4 Commission’s order denying its request for administrative review and/or waiver to this Court. COUNTERSTATEMENT OF THE FACTS I. Statutory and Regulatory Background The availability of reasonably priced telecommunications services in all parts of the nation, known as “universal service,” is a longstanding goal of federal telecommunications law. See 47 U.S.C. § 151 (directing the Commission “to make available, so far as possible, to all the people of the United States . . . a rapid, efficient, Nation-wide and world-wide wire and radio communication service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges.”). In 1996, Congress amended the Communications Act to, among other things, add a new Section 254 to the Act. See Pub. L. No. 104-104, § 254, 110 Stat. 56, 71 (1996) (codified at 47 U.S.C. § 254). As relevant here, that provision expanded the scope of universal service by creating programs to provide discounted telecommunications services and other communications services to schools, libraries, and rural health care providers. See 47 U.S.C. § 254(h). Congress thus sought to insure that elementary and secondary schools and libraries would have affordable access to modern communications services. H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 104-458, at 17 reprinted in 1996 USCCAN 124, 133 (1996). 5 The Commission’s Universal Service Schools and Libraries Support Mechanism, or “E-rate” program, is financed by the Universal Service Fund – a federal fund to which all providers of interstate telecommunications services are required to contribute. See 47 U.S.C. § 254(d); 47 C.F.R. § 54.706. These providers are permitted to, and almost always do, pass along to their end-user customers the cost