Raimondo Touts Biden Plan's Broadband Flexibility

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and other GOP leaders backed Capito’s counterproposal work during a news conference. “Certainly here in the Senate, there are a group of us looking to get to an outcome on infrastructure which would involve a more modest amount targeted and what all of us can agree is, in fact, infrastructure," McConnell told reporters after a caucus lunch in which Republicans discussed Capito’s plans. "Hopefully, I'd like to see a credible way to pay for it.” Biden told GOP lawmakers during a Monday meeting to present him with a counterproposal “by mid-May,” attendee Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., told reporters. "I think that that, for him, would be a starting point for some kind of negotiation.”

Biden's plan doesn’t propose a “one-size-fits-all” approach to broadband, Raimondo told Senate Appropriations. The administration will “consider alternatives to fiber in the cases where that is the best, most effective way to deliver broadband.” There must be an “openness to embracing different technologies” to ensure universal broadband connectivity in some areas where fiber isn’t feasible, she said: “We will work with the entities that are in the best position to provide broadband. And if that is a nonprofit or a co-op or a municipal operation, then that’s how we will operate.”

Raimondo touted the Biden plan's semiconductor language provisions as needed for the U.S. to effectively compete against China. DOD "has been warning us for years that the decline in our small- and medium-size manufacturers in critical supply chains is a national-security risk," she said. "I hear the concern that this may look like a subsidy to profitable companies. I understand that, but that’s not what this is. This is an investment in" R&D "to ensure that we can protect ourselves. We are totally reliant on Taiwan and China for this critical supply.”

“We’re learning from” past federal programs, like the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program, “and we won’t make the same mistakes,” Raimondo responded to a question from Appropriations Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. He noted FCC Rural Digital Opportunity Fund rules don’t include “penalties” if recipients “failed in their commitments” and hoped the Biden proposal won’t similarly “subsidize” failed projects.

Senators cited the need for a flexible approach to broadband. “When you have a state” like Alaska “that’s one-fifth the size” of the continental U.S., “we’re not going to be able to connect everything by fiber,” said Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski. “We need the cell towers, we need the all-of-the-above approach” to achieve universal connectivity. Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin believes any infrastructure package should allow co-ops as a way to “get up in all these difficult, challenging areas,” like West Virginia, where major ISPs aren’t willing to deploy fiber.

Murkowski was among the Appropriations Republicans who emphasized the need for improving broadband affordability, an issue Biden wants to address. “The affordability case is absolutely key,” she said. “We’re seeing families in certain parts of” Alaska “where they’re paying an additional $800 per month” because they need it for remote work, remote learning and telehealth. Congress needs “to be thinking” about affordability, said Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri. “Having access to a system, just because it runs by your house, doesn’t mean you necessarily have the ability to use it.”

Rural Areas

Senate Appropriations members emphasized the Biden proposal’s importance to improve connectivity in rural areas.

“Rural America has been left behind for too long,” Leahy said. “In the pandemic,” broadband access has been crucial. The money needs to be “targeted” at unserved and underserved rural areas, said Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont. But “connecting folks, especially in rural America, is going to take more than money. It’s going to take good maps. It’s going to take a workforce to put in the infrastructure. It’s going to take identifying carriers with the best solutions and a commitment to building out” to hard-to-reach areas.

House Agriculture Committee leaders cited the need for more targeted rural broadband money. “Rural broadband is critical for the growth and development of our rural communities,” said Chairman David Scott, D-Ga., during a hearing. “If we are not able to get our farmers technologically up to date, we will fall behind our current position as being No. 1 in the world in agriculture.” Ranking member Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., believes many rural communities are being left behind without improved broadband access.

Microsoft Global Airband Initiative General Manager Vickie Robinson and other witnesses supported Biden plan’s goals, though some suggested tweaks. Totelcom Communications General Manager Jennifer Prather, speaking for NTCA, called broadband “essential rural infrastructure.” Building “broadband networks is capital-intensive and time-consuming,” she said. “Building them in rural areas involves a special further set of obstacles,” including “diverse terrain.”

Funding “must be made available on a technology-neutral basis so that broadband providers can use solutions that are tailored,” Robinson said. There’s a “quite natural longing for solutions, if and when they come, to be ‘future proof’ and ‘built right the first time,’” said Wabash Heartland Innovation Network CEO Johnny Park. That’s unfeasible for broadband because the “spectrum on which telecommunications depends is a fixed, limited resource. The only way to get more of it is to innovate technology to get more performance out of what is already there. This means standards have to change, and replacement of infrastructure must follow.”

Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., urged Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen Monday to coordinate the department’s implementation of broadband money, allocated via the American Rescue Plan Act COVID-19 aid package, “with the other federal agencies supporting broadband deployment.” The American Rescue Plan Act, enacted in March, allocated $350 billion for state and local aid to be disbursed by Treasury, including for broadband, and $10 billion for the Coronavirus Capital Projects Fund (see 2103110060).

“Without coordination” on federal broadband efforts, Wicker wrote Yellen, “agencies risk wasting scarce federal resources, duplicating support provided by another agency, or overbuilding a project already subsidized by federal dollars or private investment.”