On July 17, 2013 the Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing titled “E-rate 2.0: Connecting Every Child to the Transformative Power of Technology”.  The Committee focused its attention on receiving feedback from the four witnesses on how the E-rate process should be reformed in order to streamline the application process while reducing waste, fraud and abuse within the program.  The FCC falls within the oversight responsibilities of the Senate Commerce Committee.

The FCC will be discussing E-rate reform at the next Open Meeting on Friday, July 19th, and will most likely release a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for stakeholders to issue comments.

Witness Testimony:

Chairman Rockefeller (D-WV) Opening Statement

Ranking Member Thune (R-SD) Opening Statement