Lawmakers Want Stimulus Funds Getting To Rural America; 'Remoteness' Definition Raises Concerns

Members of the Senate Commerce Committee raised concerns Tuesday about getting broadband stimulus funds out to remote areas and how these areas should be defined. Committee Chairman John "Jay" Rockefeller (D-WV) and Sen John Kerry (D-MA) both raised concerns about defining remote areas and making sure the funding is getting to the underserved areas in need. Jonathan Adelstein, administrator of the Rural Utilities Service at the Department of Agriculture, outlined the problem in his prepared testimony. "[W]e have seen applicants struggle to comply with the requirements of the "remote" definition for last-mile rural remote programs," Adelstein said."We are contemplating major revisions that will continue to target highly-rural areas that are difficult to serve while making it easier for applicants to comply with any new definition we may establish." He added that they have seen "some applicants encounter challenges with our program's rural definition" and "some applicants have found it difficult to comply with the loan requirement for middle mile and last mile non-remote projects." Adelstein said "It continues to be our belief that we should move to compress the planned-for second and third [funding] rounds [to applicants] into a single round in order to give applicants additional time to create strong proposals and to ensure that we are able to meet the goal of obligating all funds by Sept. 20, 2010." RUS and the National Telecommunications and Information administration plan to seek formal written comments on ways to better meet the requirements of the Recovery Act and will be releasing a request for information soon, he added. "We will make necessary changes based on these suggestions and our experience."