NRECA, Others Urge Appropriators to Maintain Increased Funding for ReConnect

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, NTCA and 22 other groups urged leaders of the House and Senate Appropriations committees to ensure $605 million in House-passed funding for the Rural Utilities Service's ReConnect rural broadband funding program remains in the FY 2020 Agriculture Department funding bill. The House approved the increase in June by 408-22 (see 1906210001). Congress originally allocated $600 million for what became ReConnect in the FY 2018 omnibus spending law but decreased the funding to $550 million for FY 2019 (see 1902150055). “USDA has signaled that much of the money previously allocated” for ReConnect “will be committed in the coming weeks to the first tranche of awardees,” NRECA and the others wrote to Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala.; ranking member Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.; House Appropriations Chairwoman Nita Lowey, D-N.Y.; and ranking member Kay Granger, R-Texas, in a letter released Tuesday. “We are concerned that a lapse in appropriations in [FY 2020] will deny funds for those communities in need of broadband and interested in pursuing ReConnect funding.” The groups noted USDA received initial applications seeking more than $635 million in program loans and grants, which likely “represents a mere fraction of the total investment needed going forward to close the digital divide.” Senate Appropriations advanced its FY 2020 Agriculture bill in September with no additional ReConnect funding, but the bill's report includes language directing the department to review ReConnect. Reps. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., who sought the ReConnect funding hike, and Rodney Davis, R-Ill., are also seeking their colleagues' support for keeping the increase in the final appropriations bill. The measure should “contain robust funding for rural broadband programs such as ReConnect and the 2018 Farm Bill broadband loan and grant program,” they wrote. “This funding is critical to addressing the 'digital divide.'”