Sen. Claire McCaskill's remarks at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on universal service this morning were memorable. 

Universal service is broadly believed to be a swampy mess.  Billions are collected from all of us to pay carriers for services that may be (1) the wrong services (i.e., not highspeed internet connections) provided (2) inefficiently to (3) the wrong people by (4) bloated and canny telephone companies. Let's paraphrase:

Universal service needs fundamental reform.  You [Commr. Tate, chair of the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service] keep telling us that if we want to see reform we have to ask the next panel about it.  [The next panel of witnesses was peopled by employees of rural, wireless, and wireline telephone companies.] 

But that's an acknowledgement that the cart is driving the horse here.  The next panel is filled with people who make money with universal service support.  You're essentially saying that "the FCC is incapable of moving forward on reform unless everyone tells us it's okay." 

We thought you, the FCC, had statutory authority to act!  You don't have to wait for all the people making money here to join hands and agree! 

Commr. Tate responded that, well, the Joint Board did take a step - it made a recommendation.  The Senators seemed not to be persuaded.

Here's what I (the blogger, not Commr. Tate) understand the recommendation to be.  It's not comprehensive reform. On May 1, the Board recommended that swiftly-growing "high cost" support given to competitive carriers (for serving areas that are expensive to serve) be subject to an interim cap.  From what I can tell, this cap won't be applied to the incumbent local phone companies.  So it will constrain what wireless providers in rural areas will be able to do.  And the incumbents will be able to continue along their merry way.

It's all very hard to believe, and the Senators seemed both frustrated and well-informed. 

Back to Sen. McCaskill (paraphrase):

It doesn't matter what the Joint Board says.  You at the FCC have the authority to fix this.  But the people who have figured out how to access this money are driving the train, not sound public policy.
 
Look, this really is a fetid, arcane area in the dark basement of FCC regulation.  Universal service is complex and graft-ridden and tied to political patronage.  People say we can fix the collection mechanism by tying it to phone numbers - VoIP and otherwise - and fix the distribution mechanism by making everything a reverse auction. But there are miles and miles between this solution and where we're standing (or sinking).  Meanwhile, an amazing technological age is passing people by, because USF doesn't fund highspeed internet access. 

Luckily, the numbers are staggering (it's almost beyond count - they'll have to switch to the latter-day McDonald's formulation of billions and billions spent because it's getting hard to tell how many), so people should stay interested in this one for a while. 

Commr. Tate seemed a little taken aback.  She said, "I’ve never seen this much attention focused on this issue."  Let's hope the focus continues.