Library Groups Mobilize Against FCC Proposal to Reshape E-Rate
Thursday’s FCC E-Rate inquiry would raise compliance burdens for consultants, participants, and providers, librarians said in interviews
WASHINGTON, June 27, 2026 – Librarians and their allies are speaking up about how worried they are about the Federal Communications Commission’s efforts to target E-Rate.
In interviews with Broadband Breakfast, these officials said the agency’s inquiry could disrupt a system – the $2.4 billion subsidy program for schools and libraries – that they describe as working well.
And Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., regarded by many as the author of the original E-Rate program established by the 1996 Telecom Act, blasted the FCC’s Thursday vote to reopen key aspects of E-Rate policy.
“Today’s FCC vote is a deeply troubling step toward weakening E-Rate, a universal program that has connected millions of students, teachers, schools, and libraries — in urban and rural communities alike — to the internet for 30 years,” Markey said Thursday in a release.
“This rulemaking goes far beyond reviewing the impact of screen time on students and undermines educational equality, harms our economic competitiveness, and threatens to reverse three decades of settled law,” the senator said.
Librarians say the current system is working well
Christine Morris, digital services manager of the Ohio Public Library Information Network, told Broadband Breakfast she was particularly concerned with a proposal that could require individual libraries to create and manage their own federal accounts with the Universal Service Administrative Co.
The proposal is park of an inquiry the FCC launched Thursday, which, among other questions, asks whether the E-Rate program should be sunset, narrowed, or restricted to certain regions.
The inquiry proposes increasing oversight of consultants by requiring annual disclosures and certifications. It also requires applicants and service providers to collect and submit additional information, and register in certain federal databases individually, adding additional compliance burdens.
“We're really concerned about what that process is going to look like for the 251 libraries in our network,” Morris said. The Ohio Public Library Information Network (OPLIN) provides E-Rate administrative support for public library systems across all 88 counties in Ohio, serving urban, rural, and suburban communities.
Existing system reduces administrative burden for local libraries
Morris said the system centralizes much of the E-Rate process, with Ohio filing applications on behalf of local libraries and coordinating broadband delivery through the state-funded IT organization Ohio Academic Resources Network (OARNet).
Morris said the goal of the system is to reduce administrative burden for local libraries, many of which lack staff, funding, or expertise to navigate the program independently.
“We make the process of certifying very easy, so that [libraries] don't have to get involved in the nitty gritty,” Morris said.
Of the FCC’s proposal, she said, “They think it's going to be easier. It is not going to be easier on anybody – not on the FCC, not on us, not on USAC, and not on libraries and schools.”
Morris also chairs the American Library Association’s E-Rate Task Force. The ALA and its partners, including the Schools, Health and Libraries Broadband Coalition, launched a national Save Our E-Rate campaign after the FCC vote, urging libraries, schools, and advocates to submit comments and defend the program during the rulemaking process.
Proposal raises questions about existing online safety tools
Morris also pushed back on the FCC’s proposal to revisit the 2000 Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) guidance. The U.S. federal law requires schools and libraries receiving certain federal broadband discounts to put in place internet safety policies and filtering tools to protect minors.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has framed the proceeding as part of a broader effort to ensure CIPA requirements sufficiently protect children from inappropriate and harmful content when using school and library computers to access E-Rate-funded networks. The inquiry seeks comment on whether the FCC’s current interpretation of the CIPA is the best reading.
Morris advocated for the FCC’s existing reading of the law, saying it allows communities to set appropriate standards for children’s internet safety.
“I will tell you that the best reading of the Children’s Internet Protection Act is the local community-based reading,” Morris said. “There is a notice to the community, a public board meeting, and then rules are adopted based on what that community determines is appropriate for its children.”
She added that she did not see how a federal reinterpretation of the law would improve on that process.
“I have absolutely no idea how a federal interpretation is going to be any better than that process of local communities doing their own best reading of what that means for their community and their children,” she said.
OPLIN also helps libraries comply with federal CIPA requirements, including collecting and verifying certifications so that individual libraries do not have to directly manage federal E-Rate systems or create accounts in the USAC’s E-Rate Productivity Center.
E-Rate is the foundation of school and library connectivity
Morris said the E-Rate program remains the foundation for connectivity, supporting more than 100,000 schools and 11,000 libraries nationwide.
Sherry Scheline, director of the Donnelly Public Library in Idaho, illustrated the financial pressure smaller systems face, noting that the network equipment needed to keep her library online next year would cost roughly $10,000, about an eighth of the library’s $80,000 annual budget, which also supports all staff and programming.
Scheline said 83 percent of U.S. libraries serve small or rural communities, with the vast majority of serving as access points for services ranging from telehealth to job applications to online learning and basic internet use.
Morris said the FCC inquiry reflects a broader policy debate over whether federal broadband programs have already achieved their goals or still require expansion.
“We're always going to need more connectivity,” she said. “Especially in the age of AI, especially in the context of the federal programs that the executive branch is proposing to make sure that students are ready for AI into the future.”
The FCC has taken other actions affecting the program in recent months.
In April, the FCC approved a new rule creating additional administrative burdens for schools and libraries to access funds from the E-Rate program. In September 2025, the FCC repealed its rule allowing schools and libraries to use their E-Rate funds to loan Wi-Fi hotspots.
