Ajit Pai urges states to cap prison phone rates after he helped kill FCC caps

Enlarge / A telephone in a prison. (credit: Getty Images | Image Source)

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai is urging state governments to impose price caps on prison phone calls, three years after Pai helped kill Obama-era FCC rules that limited the price of such calls.

Pai yesterday sent a letter to the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), saying it is up to state governments to cap intrastate calling prices because the FCC lacks authority to do so. (NARUC represents state utility regulators.) Pai wrote:

Given the alarming evidence of egregiously high intrastate inmate calling rates and the FCC's lack of jurisdiction here, I am calling on states to exercise their authority and, at long last, address this pressing problem. Specifically, I implore NARUC and state regulatory commissions to take action on intrastate inmate calling services rates to enable more affordable communications for the incarcerated and their families.

Pai's letter did not mention that his own actions helped cement the status quo in which the FCC does not regulate intrastate prices. It's well-established that the FCC can regulate interstate rates, those affecting calls that cross state lines. Pai is even proposing to lower the FCC-imposed rate caps on interstate calls from 25 to 16 per minute in an order the FCC will vote on next month. But Pai's plan doesn't limit prices on intrastate calls, those in which the prisoner and the person on the other end of the line are in the same state.

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