House Communications Subcommittee Schedules Broadband Hearing

The House Subcommittee on Communications & Technology has scheduled a hearing May 16 on "broadband loans and grants." Republican House leaders have expressed concerns about how the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program and the Broadband Initiatives Program loans and grants created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act are being spent, including to what degree they are being used to subsidize competition to existing service, and how the spending is being monitored by the government for waste fraud and abuse. Those are the same issues that have concerned cable operators facing potential overbuilding with government dollars.

"This hearing will continue the subcommittee's ongoing oversight of how taxpayer dollars are being spent on broadband loans and grants created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and other subsidy programs." said the office of House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI).