The Federal Communications Commission faced criticism from several senators Tuesday for not moving quickly enough to overhaul a fund that guarantees telephone service to rural areas.

Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., expressed concern that the FCC is allowing telephone companies to dictate the future of the Universal Service Fund (USF), which pays for infrastructure required to install phone lines in isolated communities.

At a hearing of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, the senators asked Deborah Taylor Tate, an FCC commissioner, why the agency has been unable to put forward a long-term plan for overhauling the USF, which has shrinking revenues and expanding obligations.

Tate said the FCC is encouraging members of the telecom industry to “come together around some consensus proposal” for overhauling the USF.

That answer did not sit well with McCaskill, who asked Tate why the FCC would let the industry decide the best way to spend taxpayer money.

“What you’re basically saying to us is the FCC is incapable of moving forward on reform unless all the people who are making money say it’s OK, and that’s hard for me to get my arms around,” McCaskill said.

Klobuchar echoed those statements and asked pointed questions about Tate’s opinions on how to overhaul the USF — questions that Tate mostly dodged.

The hearing was about a recommendation made in April by the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service, which was established in 1996 to advise on the administration of the USF. The board proposed capping the amount of money that wireless phone companies could receive from the fund over an interim six-month period. The FCC is concluding a period of public comment on the recommendation this week.

The cap would temporarily address one key USF problem: More and more rural phone companies are tapping the fund to build infrastructure, particularly towers for mobile phone service.

Many wireless companies strongly oppose the recommendation, arguing that it is discriminatory because no such cap will exist on their landline competition. Other competitors, such as AT&T Inc., which has both a wireless and landline division, support the proposal.

Others, including some on the Senate panel, are concerned that the six-month cap would harm the continuing expansion of wireless service to underserved and primarily rural areas.

“I think it has ominous implications. There’s no denying we need reform. But it doesn’t mean we have to accept a recommendation that disadvantages rural America,” said Republican Olympia J. Snowe of Maine. “What that means is rural parts of my state . . . are going to be denied the very technology that can make the difference between life and death.”

Snowe added that half of the calls to emergency 911 service are from wireless phones, which often do not work in rural areas.

Lawmakers have already floated several proposals to overhaul the USF, including one (S 609) by Sens. John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W.Va., and Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and another by Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va. (HR 2054).

The funding squeeze now facing the USF, which takes in money through a surcharge on long-distance bills, is caused in part by callers abandoning traditional landline phones for wireless services, which contribute less to the fund.