House Communications Lawmakers Clash on Broadband Funding, Bill Process
House Communications Subcommittee members clashed during a Tuesday hearing over the process for building a potential broadband title in coming infrastructure legislation, hours before President Donald Trump was expected to highlight his infrastructure proposal in his State of the Union. Trump has been expected for weeks to mention infrastructure there (see 1801170054). The House Communications hearing focused on 25 separate bills, including more than a dozen subcommittee bills that Republicans filed in recent weeks and several Democratic-led or bipartisan measures (see 1801110058, 1801160048, 1801170055, 1801180058 and 1801190048).
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“I think we'll hear [Trump] say a little bit about broadband tonight,” House Communications Chairman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., told reporters after the hearing. “We'll not get out in front of the White House” on some aspects of a broadband title, but “we've talked about the funding that will be” in the proposal, she said: “We're continuing to work with the administration” on the funding issue. House Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., criticized Trump for having not already proposed “serious legislation” on infrastructure. “All we have are some back-of-the-napkin proposals” from House Communications Republicans, he said.
Pallone and other top House Communications Democrats attacked subcommittee Republicans' overall approach to crafting a consensus measure. “I'm concerned [Republicans are] simply trying to jam too much into this one hearing,” Pallone said. “We do not even have the relevant agencies here to help us understand how they will interpret the often conflicting directions included” in Republicans' proposals. “I don’t remember a time when this committee held a hearing on so many bills with a single panel of witnesses,” said House Communications ranking member Mike Doyle, D-Pa.: The subcommittee is “simply not giving these bills the time and expertise required for the members of this committee to fully consider each of these bills and its ramifications.”
Blackburn defended Republicans' process, noting the hearing followed House Communications hearings during the 115th Congress on broadband issues addressed in the 25 bills, including a November 5G hearing (see 1711160058). Subcommittee staff subsequently handed reporters a list of nine infrastructure-related hearings during this Congress. This hearing was aimed at preventing the federal government from “picking winners and losers in the [broadband] marketplace,” Blackburn said. “It's time for us to stop talking and get bills in front of us and pass them and get to work.”
Democrats trained more of their fire at the lack of specific funding language in Republicans' proposals and contrasted them with legislation like the Leading Infrastructure for Tomorrow’s (Lift) America Act (HR-2479), which proposes $40 billion for broadband deployment as part of a broader infrastructure package (see 1706020056). Subcommittee Republicans “have decided to unveil a series of partisan bills that don't address the real problems,” Pallone said. “Absent funding, there is no broadband,” said Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt. “It’s as simple as that.”
NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield, USTelecom CEO Jonathan Spalter and some other industry witnesses also supported dedicated broadband funding in a larger infrastructure bill. “We need funding for areas where there is not a business case to build broadband,” Spalter said: High-cost rural “areas require a partner in government.” It's “essential that Congress not only look at new ideas for building out rural broadband, but also focus on ways to leverage those programs that have already been most successful in doing so,” Bloomfield said. American Cable Association CEO Matthew Polka urged lawmakers to make any funding technology-neutral and disperse it via reverse auctions. “You should not undermine” ISPs' investments, “such as by permitting government funds to be used to overbuild providers or adopting measures that are not competitively and technology neutral,” Polka said.
House Commerce Chairman Greg Walden, Ore., and other Republicans focused on their proposals to remove barriers to broadband deployments, including by streamlining some environmental and historic reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act. Walden rejected claims by Natural Resources Defense Council Legislative Director Scott Slesinger that environmental reviews haven't been an impediment to broadband deployments. The U.S. “can't streamline our way to broadband access,” Slesinger told lawmakers.
Blackburn and Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Ohio, noted their interest in improving collection of data for the national broadband map, including via Johnson's Making Available Plans to Promote Investment in Next Generation Networks without Overbuilding and Waste (Mapping Now) Act. An “important step to solving” rural broadband deployment issues is to “accurately” identify which areas are unserved, Johnson said. Other Republicans touted their own bills. House Digital Commerce Subcommittee Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio, highlighted the Precision Agriculture Connectivity Act (HR-4881/S-2343). That bill would direct the FCC to establish a task force to identify internet connectivity gaps in agricultural areas. It would require the agency to develop ways to help encourage broadband adoption and precision agriculture in unserved areas (see 1801250059).