[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 98 Enrolled Bill (ENR)]

        S.98

                     One Hundred Nineteenth Congress

                                 of the

                        United States of America


                          AT THE SECOND SESSION

          Begun and held at the City of Washington on Saturday,
          the third day of January, two thousand and twenty six


                                 An Act


 
To require the Federal Communications Commission to establish a vetting 
   process for prospective applicants for high-cost universal service 
                            program funding.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
    This Act may be cited as the ``Rural Broadband Protection Act of 
2025''.
SEC. 2. VETTING PROCESS FOR PROSPECTIVE HIGH-COST UNIVERSAL SERVICE 
FUND APPLICANTS.
    Section 254 of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 254) is 
amended by adding at the end the following:
    ``(m) Vetting of High-Cost Fund Recipients.--
        ``(1) Definitions.--In this subsection--
            ``(A) the term `covered funding' means any new offer of 
        high-cost universal service program funding, including funding 
        provided through a reverse competitive bidding mechanism 
        provided under this section, for the deployment of a broadband-
        capable network and the provision of supported services over 
        the network; and
            ``(B) the term `new covered funding award' means an award 
        of covered funding that is made based on an application 
        submitted to the Commission on or after the date on which rules 
        are promulgated under paragraph (2).
        ``(2) Commission rulemaking.--Not later than 180 days after the 
    date of enactment of this subsection, the Commission shall initiate 
    a rulemaking proceeding to establish a vetting process for 
    applicants for, and other recipients of, a new covered funding 
    award.
        ``(3) Contents.--
            ``(A) In general.--In promulgating rules under paragraph 
        (2), the Commission shall provide that, consistent with 
        principles of technology neutrality, the Commission will only 
        award covered funding to applicants that can demonstrate that 
        they meet the qualifications in subparagraph (B).
            ``(B) Qualifications described.--An applicant for a new 
        covered funding award shall include in the initial application 
        a proposal containing sufficient detail and documentation for 
        the Commission to ascertain that the applicant possesses the 
        technical, financial, and operational capabilities, and has a 
        reasonable business plan, to deploy the proposed network and 
        deliver services with the relevant performance characteristics 
        and requirements defined by the Commission and as pledged by 
        the applicant.
            ``(C) Evaluation of proposal.--The Commission shall 
        evaluate a proposal described in subparagraph (B) against--
                ``(i) reasonable and well-established technical, 
            financial, and operational standards, including the 
            technical standards adopted by the Commission in orders of 
            the Commission relating to Establishing the Digital 
            Opportunity Data Collection (WC Docket No. 19-195) (or 
            orders of the Commission relating to modernizing any 
            successor collection) for purposes of entities that must 
            report broadband availability coverage; and
                ``(ii) the applicant's history of complying with 
            requirements in Commission and other government broadband 
            deployment funding programs.
            ``(D) Penalties for pre-authorization defaults.--In 
        adopting rules for any new covered funding award, the 
        Commission shall set a penalty for pre-authorization defaults 
        of at least $9,000 per violation and may not limit the base 
        forfeiture to an amount less than 30 percent of the applicant's 
        total support, unless the Commission demonstrates the need for 
        lower penalties in a particular instance.''.

                               Speaker of the House of Representatives.

                            Vice President of the United States and    
                                               President of the Senate.