Thune, Wicker Eye Broadband Bill Amendments

Senators voted 66-28 Friday to proceed to debate on a vehicle (HR-3684) for the bipartisan infrastructure spending package, even as a pair of telecom-focused GOP leaders in the chamber said they’re continuing to pursue alterations to the developing measure’s broadband title (see 2107290061). Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., got a deal from Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to address some of her concerns. Leaders of the bipartisan effort hoped final language, to be filed as a substitute amendment, would have been ready Friday night.

Bipartisan group co-leader Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., who's working with Susan Collins, R-Maine, on the broadband portion, confirmed that connectivity provisions remain under contention. Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., and Commerce ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said they’re considering seeking amendments if the bipartisan group doesn’t address their concerns. Both were among the 28 Republicans who voted against proceeding.

“We’ve made some good headway” with Collins on these issues, but “there are still some challenges,” Thune told reporters. “It’s not baked yet.” Bipartisan wording aimed at addressing “digital discrimination” or redlining is among the provisions not “resolved satisfactorily,” said Thune, who's also Communications Subcommittee ranking member. Republicans want to “make sure that resources are allocated to places that are really unserved.” He remains concerned language directing the FCC to create guardrails for ISPs’ use of an extended version of the emergency broadband benefit (see 2107280065) amounts to rate regulation.

The U.S. doesn’t regulate “the internet as a utility, and that’s one of the main reasons we had such success” with network reliability during the pandemic, Wicker told us. “I’m afraid the language in the current agreement is not tight enough to prevent the federal government or states from regulating rates.”

Wicker said he’s concerned the bipartisan proposal would give NTIA responsibility for administering the $40 billion state-level broadband grants program, which recent drafts call the “Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program.” NTIA “actually has a history that is not one of success” in managing broadband programs, including its “failure” in administering the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program during the Obama administration, Wicker said: “If BTOP had been a success, we would have much broader buildout.”

NTIA is “one-tenth the size of the FCC and they just don’t have the personnel or the expertise to run such a program, no matter how well-intentioned and how capable” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is, Wicker said. “We don’t even have a nominee” for NTIA administrator, let alone a permanent leader. Office of Policy Analysis and Development Evelyn Remaley has run the agency in an acting capacity since January (see 2101210067). NTIA didn’t comment.

Cantwell resolved her concerns on NTIA middle-mile grants, Democratic aides and communications sector lobbyists told us. Schumer agreed to double the amount of annual middle-mile funding to $1 billion for FY 2022-26 by repurposing money previously for states to issue private activity bonds for broadband projects, aides and lobbyists said. Past drafts appropriated $500 million for FY 2022-26. Cantwell told Schumer’s office and the White House Thursday they hadn’t adequately involved her in the negotiations process, given her role as Senate Commerce head, aides said.

Cantwell wouldn’t say during an interview whether she reached agreement with Schumer. “I’m very concerned about affordability and hope we can continue to make improvements” on that matter, she said: “A lot of the problem on broadband is people who can’t afford the current rates.” Cantwell was reserving judgment on whether she would support the measure absent further changes until “we see some final language.”

The measure would be a “massive down payment towards rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “With the cooperation of our Republican colleagues, I believe we can finish the bipartisan infrastructure bill in a matter of days.” Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and 15 other GOP senators voted to begin debate. Republicans briefly delayed the vote amid concerns that Schumer was trying to substitute a more than 2,700-page Democratic-only proposal, which was circulating among lobbyists, for the language the bipartisan group was drafting.

“There are different versions of the language that apparently are floating out there,” and don’t reflect what the bipartisan group is negotiating, Portman said. He later said Schumer had given him “personal assurances” the group’s draft text would be the language the full Senate would consider.

House Agriculture Committee leaders, meanwhile, were pressing that chamber’s leaders to allow a stand-alone vote on the panel-approved Broadband Internet Connections for Rural America Act (HR-4374). The panel unanimously advanced the measure in July (see 2107140061). It would allocate more than $43 billion to Agriculture Department rural connectivity programs for FY 2022-29, including $4.5 billion yearly for ReConnect. “It is vitally important” that USDA play “the leading role in our nation’s broadband strategy,” House Agriculture Chairman David Scott, D-Ga., and ranking member Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., wrote House leaders. “No agency is better equipped to bring rural broadband internet connections to rural America.”