O'Rielly Urges RUS to Reconsider ReConnect Round 2 Rule Changes
FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly urged the Rural Utilities Service Tuesday to reconsider several of its proposed changes to the rules for the second round of applications for the $550 million ReConnect rural broadband infrastructure loan and grant program. They are…
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“likely to result in potentially wasteful or problematic spending,” he said. The application deadline is March 31 (see 2003120024). The “more troubling aspects of the second round’s framework” include RUS’ decision to “lower the threshold” from 100 percent unserved to 90 percent for an area to be considered unserved to qualify for a 100 percent grant, O’Rielly said in a letter to RUS Administrator Chad Rupe. This “will likely result in upgrading service in lower cost areas that are not in need of broadband subsidies and leaving the hardest to reach areas without service.” It will “also likely result in a much more burdensome and less transparent challenge process,” O’Rielly said. He criticized “a lack of consistent and transparent practices governing the challenge process.” O’Rielly noted “certain RUS field agents had taken an idiosyncratic approach” to evaluating whether an area was unserved based on “the absence of a subscriber at the location” during the first ReConnect round, rather than “based on the existence of broadband infrastructure.” That “likely did not make much of a difference in the case of challenges to the first round of grants” but “could prove to have major consequences in the second round, given the challenging party’s much higher burden of proof,” he said. O’Rielly suggested “more comprehensive measures are needed to exclude areas subject to enforceable deployment obligations.” RUS restricts grant eligibility for areas that received Connect America Fund Phase II funding, but it's “puzzling and potentially harmful” that there aren’t similar blocks for other federal broadband funding programs, he said. O’Rielly urged RUS to ensure ReConnect funding “be distributed in a more technology neutral way” in the second round. USDA “is committed to being a strong partner in deploying high-speed broadband internet connectivity to families, farmers, businesses, and communities across rural America,” a spokesperson emailed. It coordinates with the FCC, NTIA, state governments and “local partners to ensure we are investing as responsibly and effectively as possible.” NCTA praised O’Rielly for “highlighting the need, particularly at this time, for the RUS to ensure that scarce taxpayer dollars be awarded where they are most needed -- in unserved areas that need connectivity.”