Supreme Court Appears Reluctant to Eliminate Monthly Phone Fee

The Supreme Court heard arguments on Wednesday challenging the legality of the Universal Service Fund, a program that spends more than $8 billion a year to help low-income and rural Americans access phone and internet service, as well as schools, libraries and hospitals. The conservative non-profit Consumers' Research first brought its case against the Federal Communications Commission in 2022 but it feels particularly of the moment. At the same time as the Trump administration is pushing for drastic changes to a $42 billion investment in rural broadband infrastructure, the Court's decision in the USF case has the potential to upend broadband subsidies that have been around for 30 years. I thought this went much better for the government than I anticipated at the beginning of this morning. Adam Crews, law professor at Rutgers The three liberal Supreme Court justices, plus Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh, didn't seem swayed by the argument that the program is unlawful or comple ... Read full article.