Thune Eyes Shifting Infrastructure Money From NTIA to FCC

Senate Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., floated a last-minute bid Thursday to kill a $42.5 billion NTIA-led broadband equity, access and deployment grants program included in the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and redirect it to the FCC for similar purposes. The amendment appears unlikely to get a floor vote, in line with expectations on other GOP bids to strike or pare back the $65 billion broadband section of the infrastructure substitute to shell bill HR-3684 (see 2108040072).

Thune earlier voiced misgivings to us about the feasibility of a bid by the bipartisan group that wrote the infrastructure bill to pay for it by using proceeds from the FCC February C-band auction and future frequency sales (see 2107280065). The Congressional Budget Office’s score of the infrastructure package, released Thursday, estimates future spectrum auctions will net up to $10.2 billion through FY 2031 to pay for the infrastructure package (see 2107280065). The CBO score doesn't address the C-band auction, which generated $81 billion.

Thune was “anxious to see” if the spectrum proceeds proposal would be reflected in the analysis given his concerns with the plan. DOD and other federal agencies will get “to decide how” some frequencies the bipartisan group is hoping the FCC will be able to auction off in the future will be used, meaning “there may not be any spectrum made available for commercial use,” Thune said. Money that can be drawn from those sales “may be a lot smaller than they think it is.” Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., noted similar misgivings in a separate interview.

Senate leaders were hotlining an agreement Thursday afternoon to proceed on a final vote on the infrastructure package that night after votes on 16 more amendments, aides told us. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., was aiming earlier in the day to pass the package as HR-3684 this weekend. “Hopefully, we can bring this bill to a close very shortly,” Schumer said. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told reporters "everybody understands that right behind this is going to be” consideration of a resolution to set up work on a budget reconciliation package “and I don’t think anybody is looking to extend” debate on HR-3684 “out any longer than necessary.”

Thune’s amendment would attach his Rural Connectivity Advancement Program Act (S-1885) to the infrastructure measure and give it the full $42.5 billion currently allocated for the NTIA grants. S-1885 would require the FCC spend it on broadband in “high-cost rural areas” in a “technology-neutral manner” (see 2105270072). NTIA “has previously fumbled attempts to bring broadband access to more communities,” including via the broadband technology opportunities program during the Obama administration, Thune said on the Senate floor.

Thune referenced a letter he and Wicker wrote acting Administrator Evelyn Remaley Wednesday raising concerns about NTIA’s decision to “crowdsource” reviews of applications for $1.5 billion in broadband money Congress gave the agency in December (see 2012210055). “Allowing volunteers to review applications suggests NTIA lacks the qualified staff and technical expertise necessary to administer current or future broadband programs,” Thune and Wicker wrote Remaley.

“We should think long and hard before giving an agency the authority to administer more than $42 billion in grants when it has to call on volunteers to help allocate a tiny fraction of that money,” Thune said on the Senate floor. “NTIA simply has not demonstrated its ability to administer a grant program of this size and complexity. A much better alternative would be to put” the FCC “in charge.”

The FCC “is ready to carry out whatever responsibilities are delegated to it by Congress to meet the goal of getting 100% of us connected,” acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel told reporters. NTIA didn’t comment.

Senators had voted 95-0 Wednesday to attach an amendment to HR-3684 from Sens. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., and Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., to require the FCC create an online interactive “broadband deployment locations map” that compiles data from the commission, NTIA and other federal agencies. People could use it to search for deployment by company, project timeline, number of locations served and speeds.