Broadband budgeting pits FCC against NTIA

As the Senate chips away at final passage of the $550 billion infrastructure package, the compromise’s top detractors are fretting about where negotiators placed the agreed-upon $42.5 billion in broadband deployment grants for states. In comments on the floor, Senate GOP Whip John Thune (R-SD) said he’d prefer that the Federal Communications Commission decide how to distribute those billions — not the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration, as negotiators chose. The NTIA “simply has not demonstrated its ability to administer a grant program of this size and complexity,” Sen Thune argued, pointing to the FCC’s far larger workforce and warning that Commerce could repeat some of the mistakes it made when doling out economic stimulus funding in 2009. He also expressed alarm over reports that NTIA recently sought volunteers to review applications for pandemic relief. Meanwhile, the House Agriculture Committee is trying to persuade colleagues to let the Department  of Agriculture (USDA) take the lead. The FCC, BTW, has run into its own stumbles — an agency release described its efforts to “clean up” problems regarding a landmark 2020 rural broadband auction. Acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said the commission “is ready to carry out whatever responsibilities are delegated to it by Congress to meet the goal of getting 100 percent of us connected and online.”