Several public interest groups united to oppose the...

Several public interest groups united to oppose the municipal broadband amendment from Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., Tuesday before it passed. She successfully hitched the amendment to the Financial Services appropriations bill (HR-5016) in a 223-200 vote, and the bill itself passed Wednesday (CD July 17 p3). The amendment would stop agency funding from going to pre-empt laws in the several states that restrict municipal broadband. “After years of bipartisan (and often nonpartisan) local and federal support of local broadband projects as a critical economic development need, this amendment will cut off discussion of the promotion of broadband through local projects before it even begins,” said the letter (http://bit.ly/1t9RWdq) to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., from such groups as Common Cause, Consumers Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Free Press, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, National Hispanic Media Coalition, New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute and Public Knowledge.