Peters, Starks Press Congress to Bridge Rip and Replace Funding Shortfall
Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Gary Peters, D-Mich., and FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks urged Congress to “fully fund” the FCC's Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program amid its current $3.08 billion shortfall. Lawmakers proposed in a scuttled December spectrum…
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legislative package to use some proceeds from future sales of the 3.1-3.45 GHz band and other frequencies to provide the additional rip and replace money (see 2212190069). The Chinese government’s use of spy balloons over the U.S. this year should be “the catalyst for us to eliminate the threat of Chinese government intelligence operations already imbedded in our telecommunications infrastructure once and for all,” Peters and Starks wrote Thursday in a Hill opinion piece. The $3.08 billion shortfall “no doubt is a significant expense. But the cost of failing to secure our networks is orders of magnitude higher.” If “the shortfall goes unaddressed” by July 15, “the FCC will be required to reimburse rip and replace projects at only 40 cents on the dollar,” which “will mean in some cases indefinite delays in securing our networks and the rationing of wireless service across rural America,” Peters and Starks said: “Compounding this issue is the fact that for providers who can’t afford to rip and replace without a higher subsidy, they will lose” USF access, forcing “rural communities to live with a disastrous choice: insecure services ripe for surveillance or no service at all. That is unacceptable.”