USTelecom Urges Open, Careful Proceeding on Rural Broadband Loans
USTelecom is urging the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) to take a slow, careful approach to rules governing loans to extend broadband services in rural America. In a letter Tuesday to RUS Administrator Jonathan Adelstein, USTelecom President Walter McCormick said any rules should be “carefully considered and subjected to review and comment from the public prior to being finalized."
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The 2008 Farm Bill overhauled the RUS loan program, but the agency never got around to drafting new rules for rural broadband loans, in part because the program was overshadowed by President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus program. With the stimulus money drying up, the agency is preparing to issue rules for the loan program. Adelstein has said new rules may be published by Sept. 30.
USTelecom hopes Adelstein will “take the time necessary to utilize an open process to establish rules that are right from the start -- efficient, effective, implementable and auditable,” McCormick wrote. “RUS should publish draft rules and not rush to an ‘Interim Final’ rulemaking in which the rules go into effect before the public has an opportunity to comment. It has been over two years since the farm bill was signed into law,” and the RUS had enough time during the Bush administration, before the stimulus was enacted, to set “rules for the broadband loan program” and didn’t. He said “that failure should not carry forward to this administration and cause undue haste which would result in a less than optimal rulemaking process."
The loan program is designed to connect the country’s remotest places. Some in Congress have criticized the RUS as too slow in awarding grants. A 2009 report by the Agriculture Department’s inspector general blasted the agency’s handling of a stimulus loan program.
An RUS spokesman said Adelstein hadn’t seen McCormick’s letter, so he couldn’t comment. Carri Bennet, general counsel for the Rural Telecommunications Group, said by e-mail that McCormick’s request “seems very reasonable in light of the importance of broadband funding” for rural America.”