I listened to the podcast when this came out. In the news media Q n A it came out that the FAA has been trying to raise the fee already. They have not been able to get the authorization. They will keep trying until they get it.
Full scale airplanes never had a registration fee. You just paid the one time fee first time IIRC. About 15 years or so ago the issue of registration came up. The FAA could not adequately account for aircraft registration. So the $5 fee was put in place every 3 years. So everybody who owned an aircraft had to reregister so the FAA could account for all the aircraft out there. This is how I remember when the fee started. I've been paying it ever since. The full scale data base is open for searching by anyone.
Now the FAA wants to control how many model aircraft and their pilots? Also the data base is open to anyone. This presents a big problem as anyone may be able to use some else's registration number for whatever reason.
I did a search of my N number, I believe on flightaware, and discovered someone had made a flight using my N number down in Floridga while I was home in Texas. I tried to follow up but got nowhere. Open registration may become a big problem IMO. Time will tell.