There’s another battle unfolding between the Federal Communications Commission and California over the state’s distribution of federal Lifeline money. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is proposing new nationwide eligibility rules to counter what he calls California’s practice of giving benefits to dead people.
California officials say the FCC allegations are overblown, and that there is simply “lag time between a death and account closure” rather than widespread failures in its Lifeline enrollment process. Meanwhile, the only Democratic commissioner on the FCC alleges that Carr’s plan to change eligibility rules uses “cruel and punitive eligibility standards” that will raise prices on many people who are still very much alive and eligible for the program.
Carr’s office said this week that the FCC will vote next month on rule changes to ensure that Lifeline money goes to “only living and lawful Americans” who meet low-income eligibility guidelines. Lifeline spends nearly $1 billion a year and gives eligible households up to $9.25 per month toward phone and Internet bills, or up to $34.25 per month in tribal areas.
Carr’s proposal is a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that seeks public comment on a number of potential changes. It proposes collecting full Social Security numbers from applicants, using the Citizenship and Immigration Services’ Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program to verify eligibility, preventing states from using their own verification processes, and other changes.
“A recent Inspector General advisory shows that Lifeline providers received nearly $5 million in federal dollars to provide phone or Internet service to more than 116,000 dead people in the three opt-out states,” Carr said. “Over 80 percent of those scams took place in California alone. That type of waste, fraud, and abuse is completely unacceptable.”
California: “That’s not fraud,” just “reality”
“Opt-out states” are those that use their own processes to verify eligibility instead of the National Lifeline Accountability Database. The FCC already revoked California’s opt-out status in November over allegations that California was not complying with program rules. Texas and Oregon are the other opt-out states.