STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN AJIT PAI Re: Verizon New York et al., File No.: EB-IHD-1300010704 Under the terms of this consent decree, Verizon will pay more than $17 million into the Universal Service Fund. It will also forfeit any legal rights it might have to obtain hundreds of millions of dollars in E-rate subsidies. This is an important measure that both enforces our rules and restores critical taxpayer dollars to the Universal Service Fund. But you can glean all that from the item itself and accompanying Commission press release. I write separately to address the dissent from my colleague, Commissioner Clyburn. What is significant is the dog that doesn’t bark—that is, the facts not mentioned in the dissent. Two facts of note: first, the consent decree in this case was negotiated by the Enforcement Bureau under the prior Chairman. Second, in 2016, the prior Chairman’s office briefed each Commissioner’s office on this agreement. Commissioner Clyburn’s office expressed no concerns whatsoever about the agreement at that time—and there is contemporaneous written evidence of this. If the terms of a settlement that were just fine under a Democratic chair are now unacceptable under a Republican chair, FCC enforcement becomes little more than political caprice. I hope that that’s not the case going forward.