That really is important.

So I guess the question not for you but a question for ourselves is, as a subcommittee, why should we provide you more resources, if you're not going to follow the laws that we write and expect to be followed?

undermin[ing] Congress' clear intent to preserve JSAs

I have heard repeatedly that the current cap on the high-cost fund is set too low.

Mr. Chairman, it is extremely important for companies to find efficiencies and be restrained in the expenditure of USF monies.

Congress' clear intent to preserve JSAs that were lawfully executed prior to the FCC's 2014 rule changes has to be respected.

Well, we are the ones that crafted the bill, so I can tell you what our intent was, and it is not as you perceive it.

Regulatory independence and transparency are critical to the functioning and credibility of the FCC.

ignored bipartisan concerns raised by Congress

As members of this subcommittee, we have an obligation to ensure that decisions about Federal funding and policy are made with taxpayers in mind.

The only way to ensure that rate regulation does not happen is for Congress to take a Reagan-inspired approach: Trust, but codify.

As Chairman Boozman aptly put it, there is an obvious disregard for Congress' instructions here.

So is the cap adequate?

Transferring money away from broadband deployment to offset agency spending in DC aggravates that all too real perception.

You knew my intent during that testimony. I asked you clearly if you would support, not block, whatever, our intent of going forward with putting that rider in the appropriations.

Many people in Arkansas think the FCC has forgotten about rural America.

I am out there recruiting. I, unashamedly, am out there recruiting.

We think that the changes we have proposed to the law, which I know Senator Burr and Senator Tester have been working on, will address a lot of this and, I hope, will solve it.

I want to thank you, Secretary McDonald, for your willingness to come and testify before Congress.

I think probably the creativity and the direction will come from here. It will not come from over there.

I think that is a major factor that really dampens the success of the program if we imagine vouchering out.

When they offered up the Federal proposal, why they expanded the scope of the Regional Haze Plan to include sources that were not legally authorized under the rule, EPA answered, because we can.

As you know, under the Regional Haze program, States develop implementation plans.

Some of these things we are having trouble on agreement, but the unfunded mandates really is a problem.

In Arkansas, EPA rejected our State plan and proposed an extremely expensive Federal takeover.