Re:	Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service, CC Docket No. 96-45 (rel. December 22, 2000)

I am pleased to endorse this Joint Board referral of the Rural Task Force report to the Federal Communications Commission. The inescapable meaning of the language of Section 254 of the Communications Act is that its primary purpose is the preservation and advancement of telecommunications services in rural America. This purpose has not been addressed by the Commission since the passage of the Telecommunications Act nearly five years ago, although the Commission has seen fit to spend billions of dollars of consumer fees for other purposes divined under Section 254.

Chairman William Gillis led the Rural Task Force in a mission designed to fail: from disparate and conflicting parties, form a consensus view on universal service for small rural telephone companies. Chairman Gillis believed the Rural Task Force could succeed; practically all outside observers believed no consensus could be reached. He was proved correct; others were proved wrong. The members of Rural Task Force have proven to have a greater sense of the public interest in reaching an agreement than others believed possible.

The Rural Task Force was and is the creation of the Joint Board on Universal Service. Where we sought their advice and when we waited two years to receive it, we must give it some substantial degree of respect. I cannot pretend to agree with every word in the recommendations; there is much that I would have written differently. Moreover, many parts of the recommendations lack detail. The FCC will have much work to fill in the details, but surely the FCC will have the Joint Board and the Rural Task Force to thank for an auspicious starting point.