Senators Eye Broadband Money Cuts, Hikes in COVID-19 Bill

Senators began sparring Wednesday over the American Rescue Plan Act COVID-19 budget reconciliation package (HR-1319), including whether to increase or retain proposed broadband funding. Formal debate on HR-1319 was expected to have begun after a vote to proceed on the measure that may happen Thursday. Lawmakers and communications officials are, meanwhile, looking at whether coming infrastructure legislation should include further funding for E-rate. The House passed HR-1319 last week with $7.6 billion for E-rate remote learning use (see 2103010050).

“Broadband’s going to play a big part” in infrastructure legislation Democrats aim to unveil this spring, said House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania in an interview. House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., “is going to be working with us” on the broadband title due to his strong interest in connectivity, and “we’re going to make a major push” for the money. Clyburn is expected to refile a $100 billion broadband spending proposal within the next two weeks (see 2102100061), which last year formed the basis for connectivity spending in Democrats’ infrastructure proposals, lobbyists said.

Clyburn’s involvement will hopefully make broadband spending a top priority in talks on the infrastructure package, Doyle said: “The pandemic has really laid bare how important it is that we get people connected and we get resources to people.” The House Commerce Committee is eyeing a late March hearing to tee up both Clyburn’s proposal and a revised version of the Leading Infrastructure for Tomorrow’s America Act (see 1905220076), as Capitol Hill gears up for the coming infrastructure push, lobbyists said.

Vice President Kamala Harris cited HR-1319’s E-rate funding proposal during a House Democratic Caucus summit. “The students in rural America who are attending school virtually without a decent interconnection, if they have one at all,” are among those who need aid via the legislation, she said. Some early drafts of a substitute amendment aim to cut the E-rate money by $428 million. The Senate package also proposes giving CPB $175 million. Harris and President Joe Biden continued to meet with Democratic senators Wednesday in a bid to shore up support for the bill. Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg are to meet Thursday with a bipartisan group of House members on infrastructure issues, the White House said.

“Republicans are going to have concerns about spending appropriated money for E-rate” as proposed in HR-1319, said Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss. “We already had a dustup over that” in December, when Democrats failed to attach $3 billion for E-rate in what eventually became the FY 2021 appropriations and COVID-19 aid measure that allocated just under $7 billion for broadband (see 2012210055). He suggested the proposed E-rate money could also violate the “Byrd Rule,” which limits potentially extraneous provisions that lawmakers can include in legislation that the Senate is seeking to pass via the budget reconciliation process being used for HR-1319.

Senate Minority Whip John Thune of South Dakota, who’s also Communications Subcommittee ranking member, told us Wednesday he hadn’t “seen an amendment” from fellow Republicans aimed at stripping out the E-rate funding or adding new eligibility requirements. A Thune aide said “there are some folks who are thinking about amendments in that space.” House Commerce Committee Republicans unsuccessfully sought such amendments during a markup last month of its part of HR-1319 (see 2102120066). Thune and other Senate GOP leaders criticized Democrats Wednesday for including a range of spending priorities in the bill they called unrelated to pandemic aid.

Senate Communications Chairman Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., told us he’s among those aiming to preserve the full E-rate funding included in the House-passed HR-1319. “I’m encouraged that as of right now, that $7.6 billion” is “included in the package” in full, Lujan said. “There is more investment that will be needed” for E-rate in the future “for the good of the country, for the good of rural and tribal communities.” He cited Clyburn’s coming broadband proposal as a likely vehicle.

John Windhausen, executive director of the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition, remained “optimistic” the Senate will retain the full $7.6 billion for E-rate. “It’s not attracted much opposition” compared with the “bigger picture politics around the rest of” HR-1319, he said: “$7.6 billion is a very tiny amount compared to” the overall bill’s $1.9 trillion price tag.

“At one point,” lawmakers were proposing $12 billion in additional remote learning money, so “it’s already been cut back” substantially, Windhausen said. “Our analysis is that the $7.6 billion is what’s needed to cover students through the end of” this school year. “It looks like the virus is going to continue to cause havoc with school schedules” into the next year, “so we could be dealing with the hybrid learning situation for quite some time,” he said.

Other Senate Democratic Caucus members seek to carve out additional broadband provisions in HR-1319. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, told us he’s pressing for $50 billion of the $350 billion allocated in HR-1319 for state and local governments to be set aside to improve broadband coverage. “Broadband should be an integral part” of any COVID-19 aid measure, he said. King noted he mentioned the matter during a Monday meeting with Biden and other centrist Democrats on the measure.

Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., said he’s among those seeking to include more broadband funding “than what’s already in the bill.” Reps. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J.; Abigail Spanberger, D-Va.; and Tom Reed, R-N.Y., began pushing before House passage of HR-1319 for $45 billion of the state and local funding to be allocated for those governments to establish broadband grant programs aimed at underserved areas.

Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon led a letter Wednesday with Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee Chairman Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and 11 other Democratic caucus members. They urged Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York to include language in an HR-1319 amendment to “ensure that all families maintain their essential services,” including broadband, during the pandemic. “Newly unemployed Americans are facing disconnection because of loss of income, and many Americans are having to choose between putting food on the table or keeping their” utilities connected, the lawmakers wrote Schumer.