Today, TechFreedom filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in response to the Commission’s request for input on how to better administer the schools and libraries (E-Rate) program. Our comments explain why more regulations will only heighten the need for—and influence of—consultants who will raise the rates they charge beneficiaries.
“The NPRM is correct to question the role of consultants, but must also ask why they are necessary,” said TechFreedom Senior Counsel Jim Dunstan. “The NPRM spends nearly 30 paragraphs proposing 20 new rules or sub-rules aimed at curbing waste, fraud, and abuse by consultants. Yet while acknowledging that consultants have a role in the E-Rate program, it never asks the more fundamental question: Why must so many schools and libraries hire consultants just to participate? The answer is E-Rate’s complexity and endless potential liability for beneficiaries.”
“The Commission should lift the eternal fog of audit uncertainty,” Dunstan concluded. “As our 2022 study documented, USAC’s decades-long audit clawback process undermines due process by forcing beneficiaries to defend decisions long after the relevant employees have departed and required records may no longer exist, often under threat of repaying funds they received and spent in good faith. If the Commission is serious about reducing beneficiaries’ reliance on consultants, it should examine the consequences of abandoning timeliness requirements for USAC audits. By allowing USAC to demand repayment decades after funds were approved and spent, the Commission effectively forces beneficiaries to hire consultants to preserve decades of records and institutional knowledge against the threat of future audits. Consultants (and their costs) become baked into the system as insurance defense.”
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Find these comments on our website, and share them on Twitter and Bluesky. We can be reached for comment at media@techfreedom.org. Read our related work, including:
- The FCC, USF, and USAC: An Alphabet Soup of Due Process Violations,The CGO (Apr. 18, 2023)
- Comments to the Senate USF Working Group on why Congress should direct the FCC to reform or end USAC’s role in USF (Sep. 15, 2025)
- The FCC’s $200 Billion Disaster, Pirate Wires (Dec. 20, 2024)
- Re: Review of the Commission’s Assessment and Collection of Regulatory Fees for Fiscal Year 2024, FCC Comment (July 29, 2024)
- #318: The Universal Service Fund, Tech Policy Podcast (Apr. 27, 2022)
About TechFreedom: TechFreedom is a nonprofit, nonpartisan technology policy think tank. We work to chart a path forward for policymakers towards a bright future where technology enhances freedom, and freedom enhances technology.