172 Groups Urge Congress to Back 'Future-Proof' Broadband Funding

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association and 171 other groups urged House and Senate leaders on Monday to “provide full funding to universally build networks that will deliver capacity that will meet local needs for decades and to ensure rigorous scrutiny of recipients of federal dollars so that the program achieves a proposed bill's future-proof goals.” President Joe Biden backed a bipartisan infrastructure spending package last week that includes $65 billion for broadband (see 2106240070). Biden attempted to preserve GOP support for the deal Saturday by walking back earlier statements that Republicans claimed (see 2106250066) constituted a threat to veto the package if Congress didn’t also pass an additional package of items favored by Democrats via the budget reconciliation process. “Our bipartisan agreement does not preclude Republicans from attempting to defeat” the additional reconciliation package, Biden said. Modern broadband “far above the 2015 FCC standard of 25/3 Mbps” minimum service speeds “is a necessity for all communities demanding modern services to help overcome the challenge of distance, attract new businesses, and provide young workers good paying jobs,” the groups wrote Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and their GOP counterparts. “Any new federal program must fund broadband infrastructure capable of enabling businesses to meet the needs of consumers, empower businesses to relocate to any community, provide opportunities for teleworkers and students at the same level regardless of geography, enable anchor institutions to fully provide for their entire communities, and make possible precision agriculture capabilities for agriculture producers to improve efficiencies.” A “federal program by Congress that emphasizes delivering future-proof infrastructure can enable not just ubiquitous fiber wireline access, but also make possible ubiquitous wireless services that rely on fiber optics,” including “5G, next generation Wi-Fi, and their future iterations,” the groups said.