Lawmakers Seek Infrastructure Deal Broadband Details

Telecom-focused lawmakers want to see more information on how a bipartisan infrastructure proposal President Joe Biden backed Thursday structures broadband spending. Some Democrats also cited a likely follow-up bill to address, via budget reconciliation, infrastructure spending not in this compromise as a potential vehicle for more connectivity money. The Biden-backed deal includes $65 billion for broadband, the same the administration previously offered during unsuccessful talks with Senate Republicans (see 2105270072).

The deal's “framework” will “connect every American to reliable high-speed internet, just as the federal government made a historic effort to provide electricity to every American nearly one hundred years ago,” said the White House. The framework would “drive down prices for internet service and close the digital divide.” Financing sources would include “state and local investment in broadband infrastructure” and proceeds from spectrum auctions (see 2104010062).

“It’s really important we’ve all agreed that none of us got all that we wanted,” Biden told reporters after a meeting with the bipartisan group of senators led by Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio. “I clearly didn't get all I wanted” and “they gave more than I think maybe what they were planning to give in the first place,” Biden said: “But this reminds me of the days when we used to get an awful lot done up” in Congress.

“This does represent a historic investment in our nation’s infrastructure,” Sinema told reporters. “We didn't get everything we wanted, but we came up with a good compromise that's going to help the American people,” Portman said. “It was not easy to get agreement on” the deal’s top-line spending figures, scope and how to pay for it, “but it was essential” those issues be addressed, said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, another participant in the talks.

“I expect that in the coming months this summer,” before the Sept. 30 end of FY 2021, “that we will have voted on” the bipartisan infrastructure package “as well as voted on the budget resolution” to address other infrastructure issues, Biden said. “But if only one comes to me, this is the only one that comes to me, I’m not signing it. It’s in tandem.”

Reconciliation?

Many Democrats want reassurance that a reconciliation package will follow the compromise measure.

There “ain’t no infrastructure bill without the reconciliation bill,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters. She and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., vowed Wednesday to pursue a bipartisan infrastructure package and separate Democratic reconciliation measure in July. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said their support for the package is contingent on Democratic leaders bringing up a supplemental package under reconciliation.

Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said she believes it’s unlikely $65 billion will fully close the digital divide, and she wants to hear what the bipartisan group “has to say” about the proposal's details. She’s hopeful but “not sure yet” whether the bipartisan agreement will mean Commerce will be in a position to mark up the broadband part of a package next month, before August recess. House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle, D-Pa., likewise hoped before the deal was announced he could mark up broadband spending as soon as “we get the green light from leadership.”

Much will depend on how lawmakers choose to allocate the broadband money among fiber and other connectivity technologies, Cantwell told us. That issue came up repeatedly during a Tuesday Senate Communications Subcommittee hearing (see 2106220066). “I’m sure the incumbents would like to get their hands on more money,” she said. “I’m sure the rest of us want to talk about affordability and access. I think the issue is that you have great bipartisan support for making more investment,” but people want to know “how is this going to solve the problems so laid bare” during the pandemic.

Details

Lack of initial details prompted questions from lawmakers who may back the plan.

“I want to look at the details” of the bipartisan deal, but the reconciliation package that Democrats want to follow that measure could supplement the $65 billion for broadband, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., told us. Her Accessible, Affordable Internet for All Act (HR-1783/S-745) proposed $100 billion for connectivity, in line with what Biden originally wanted (see 2103110037). “We want to make sure everyone gets connected,” so how Congress chooses to allocate the broadband money will be crucial, she said.

“I haven’t seen” the details of the pact, but “we’re not finished” with broadband money if it passes, said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass. “We have to get more into the reconciliation bill” that would supplement the $65 billion to provide universal connectivity.

Senate Commerce ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., told us he’s pleased the deal includes the $65 billion broadband spending the Capito-led GOP group earlier sought from the White House. He's “surprised” by earlier reports that the bipartisan group was developing a revised draft that would have reduced the funding to $45 billion. A lowered amount wouldn’t have been “a showstopper,” he said. Lawmakers shouldn’t seek to set aside a majority of the money to any one type of broadband technology since it “depends on the location and various geographical factors.”

“The question will come down to how” the $65 billion “gets spent and whether it gets spent efficiently,” said Senate Communications ranking member John Thune, R-S.D.: “The details matter.” Other Republicans also sought a technology-neutral strategy for broadband spending, as did some stakeholders (see 2106210058).

ISPs

ISPs have hopes of their own.

NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield praised the accord and wants “policymakers to aim high and invest in future-proof fiber technology built to last, to ensure that funding is directed towards connecting those most in need first and to coordinate funding among the existing federal and state programs that support and sustain broadband deployment and help keep services in hard-to-reach rural areas affordable.”

The Wireless ISP Association hailed the deal, with a caveat. “Ensure that support programs are technologically neutral, invite the widest palette of solutions, and leverage able providers already in the marketplace to rapidly and robustly deliver broadband to the unserved,” WISPA said. “Focus efforts on communities that have yet to gain access to meaningful connectivity by allowing a wide array of technology solutions to quickly and affordably connect them today, not five or ten years down the line.”

The House Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee, meanwhile, unanimously advanced its FY 2022 bill to give the FCC $388 million and the FTC almost $390 million, mirroring what Biden proposed in late May (see 2105280055). FCC funding would be 3.7% above FY 2021; FTC’s 11% higher (see 2012210055). The measure also includes $50 million for the Technology Modernization Fund. A House Appropriations Committee markup of the measure will happen Tuesday.