Local Government Groups Again Blast American Broadband Deployment Act
NATOA, the U.S. Conference of Mayors and two more local government groups reinforced their opposition (see 2311060069) to the House Commerce Committee-cleared American Broadband Deployment Act (HR-3557) Wednesday. House Commerce last year advanced the measure, a package of GOP-led connectivity…
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permitting revamp measures, without Democratic support (see 2305240069). NCTA and nine other communications industry groups urged House leaders last month to defeat the measure before the end of this Congress (see 2409050035). HR-3557 “represents an unprecedented and dangerous usurpation of local governments’ authority to manage public rights-of-way and land use,” NATOA and the other groups said in a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. The National Association of Counties and National League of Cities also signed. They noted the bill “favors a model for local permitting that unfairly constrains local input and threatens to undo significant local coordination efforts that have occurred across the country to prepare and act upon this historic moment in federal broadband infrastructure investment.” In “return for these gifts, the bill imposes no obligations on cable, wireless, and telecommunications companies to provide broadband to ‘unserved’ and ‘underserved’ Americans and, further, passes on the real cost of deployment to already overburdened American households,” the groups said: “That such flawed legislation has moved as far as it has may be attributed to the fact” House Commerce moved HR-3557 “without the benefit of local government testimony nor insights and consequences of the proposed fundamental changes to our nation’s telecommunications policy and rights-of-way authorities.”