House Commerce Committee Districts Get 40 Percent of BTOP Grants
More than 40 percent of NTIA broadband stimulus money went directly to or was shared by areas represented by members of the House Commerce Committee, although committee members make up 14 percent of the House, an analysis of government records shows. Committee members’ districts won all or parts of nearly $1.9 billion in grants, NTIA records show. On the Senate side, more than 51 percent -- about $2 billion -- of the money given out by the NTIA went to states with senators on the Commerce Committee, NTIA records show. Twenty-five senators, one quarter of the Senate, sit on the committee. Legislators whose home districts got money said there’s no connection between their committee role and the grants.
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There was less of a correlation in the Rural Utilities Service grants between areas that got them and membership on the House Commerce or Agriculture committees. About 42 percent of RUS money was disbursed, in whole or part, in districts with representatives on either committee, RUS records show. About one-quarter of the representatives sit on either of those committees.
Neither NTIA nor RUS responded to requests over two days for interviews. NTIA Chief of Staff Tom Power said in a statement: “Looking closely at the distribution of BTOP grants only highlights NTIA’s efforts to make geographic diversity a priority -- however you crunch the numbers.” RUS’s “selection and funding of Broadband Initiative Program (BIP) awards was completed objectively, based solely on meeting the competitive criteria set out in the Notices of Funds Availability published in the Federal Register,” the agency said in a written statement. “Any suggestion that funding decisions were politically motivated is without merit."
About 70 percent of the RUS grants went to states with senators on either or both the Commerce or Agriculture Committees, records show. There are 46 seats on those committees, and three senators -- Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar, Nebraska Republican Mike Johanns and South Dakota Republican John Thune -- sit on both committees. Johanns served as Agriculture Secretary under President George W. Bush.
"Massachusetts received grant funding based on need and the quality of our application, period,” said Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass. The state got $152.1 million from NTIA and $486,000 from RUS. “It’s common knowledge that Cape [Cod] and Western Massachusetts have suffered with limited broadband connectivity for years, and I've been banging the drum to fix it for more than a decade,” Kerry said. “We deserved every penny we got and I know it will greatly benefit our economic development.” The GAO reviewed the grant approval process and gave NTIA and RUS high marks, Kerry said.
"Many of us said when the stimulus package was being drafted that there was no justification for simply lining favored constituencies’ pockets with taxpayers’ money,” said House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Joe Barton, R-Texas. “And if there was going to be spending no matter what we said, logic screamed that it should have gone first to unserved areas where people can’t get broadband at any price.”
"Some of this would certainly be explained just by correlation and not by causality,” said Meredith McGehee, policy director of the Campaign Legal Center. “And then the other part may be causality. A lot of times I think you'll find that even the people making the decision may not be aware of taking into consideration the political implications of what they're doing."
The Senate Commerce Committee includes 25 senators representing 24 states, “or 48 percent of the country, including some of the most rural parts of the country where broadband access is needed the most,” a committee spokeswoman said. “The fact that 49 percent of the total number of NTIA BTOP grants was allocated to states that constitute 48 percent of the country seems not only reasonable -- but entirely unexceptional."
"The House committees have no say as to which applicant receives funding,” said a spokesman for Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich. His district received all or part of NTIA awards totaling $106 million and RUS awards totaling $18.3 million, agency records show. Stupak “represents one of the largest and most rural districts in the country,” he said. “Every grant recipient in his district has undergone the same competitive application process that all applicants across the county go through."
Commerce Committee members with the most NTIA grant monies in their districts were Reps. Mike Doyle, D-Pa. ($128 million), Joseph Pitts, R-Pa. ($128 million), George Radanovich, R-Calif. ($128 million), Christopher Murphy, D-Conn. ($123 million) and John Sarbanes, D-Md. ($115 million), records show. The figures are based on the grants’ descriptions posted on NTIA website, then matched with Congressional districts. The figures include statewide grants.
"While I'd love to take credit for steering $128 million to my district, the fact of the matter is that this money won’t primarily benefit my constituents, and I wasn’t alone in supporting these applications,” Doyle said. A Pitts spokesman said the congressman didn’t support the stimulus bill and wrote only one letter in support of a project. House Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Cliff Stearns, R-Fla. -- whose district received all or part of BTOP awards totaling $30.1 million -- said NTIA and RUS “determined the distribution of the [Recovery Act] funds without any input from me."
Michigan State University Professor Adam Candeub said there’s no doubt that NTIA’s decisions were influenced by concern for their Congressional overseers, it’s just a question of how much. “It’s one of the great conundrums of administrative law, how Congress influences agency policy,” said Candeub, who teaches communications law. “It’s very subtle, but it’s always there. Congress has enormous influence who it calls in hearings and when, the appointments it gets in an agency and generally the economy of favors that Washington runs on."
The committee districts which won the most RUS support were represented by Vermont Democrat Peter Welch ($85.6 million), Kansas Republican Jerry Moran ($59.7 million), Missouri Republican Sam Graves ($53.9 million), Georgia Democrat John Barrow ($50.4 million) and Texas Republican Randy Neugebauer ($47.6 million), records show. Like the NTIA figures, the amounts are derived from the grants’ descriptions on the RUS website. The RUS figures include statewide grants but not grants to satellite companies that affected vast swaths of the country.
Left on the sidelines were districts represented by House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Joe Barton, R-Texas, and Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Frank Lucas, R-Okla. Districts of the Democratic chairmen of the two committees did receive money. The district of Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., received all or part of $16.8 million in grants from the RUS program, while the district of Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., got a portion of $20.3 million from the NTIA program. Peterson didn’t write letters of support for projects in his district, and didn’t vote for the Recovery Act, said a spokeswoman. Agriculture Committee members tend to live in rural districts, so they tend to receive more broadband funding, she added.
Several Republican districts did receive a lot of money, even though their lawmakers opposed the Recovery Act. Senate Republican Leader and Agriculture Committee member Mitch McConnell’s home state of Kentucky got $256.4 million from the RUS program. Rep. George Radanovich of California got all or part of $127.8 million in grants from BTOP and $1.9 million from BIP. Radanovich attributed it to an aggressive push by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a fellow Republican. He said that while his district “has lagged behind and funds are needed, I have chosen not to pursue broadband program grant funding made available from the stimulus bill,” Radanovich said.
Overall, the Obama administration has given out nearly $6.8 billion in broadband grants, RUS and NTIA records show. California got the most money, with all or part of nearly $438 million. Next was Kentucky with more than $278 million, followed by New York ($233 million), Texas ($232 million), Illinois ($230 million), Washington ($227 million), Michigan ($221 million), Wisconsin ($214 million), Oklahoma ($203 million) and Pennsylvania ($201 million).
Delaware received the least grant money, about $1.9 million, RUS and NTIA records show. Delaware trailed Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands ($8 million), Wyoming ($10.7 million), Nebraska ($22.6 million), Rhode Island ($23 million), the District of Columbia ($23.2 million), Idaho ($24 million), Hawaii ($35.9 million), Maine ($37.6 million) and Puerto Rico ($38.8 million).
More than 60 percent of the money went to states that voted for President Barack Obama in the last election, but nearly 69 percent of the population lives in those states. On a longer timeline, government records also show that more 51 percent of the grants went to states that voted Republican in at least two of the last three presidential elections.