An Office of Rural Broadband: We’ve Heard This Before

On Feb 12, 2019 Sen Kevin Cramer (R-ND) introduced The Office of Rural Broadband Act in the Senate (S 454), which would establish an Office of Rural Broadband in the Federal Communications Commission. Sen Cramer’s Office of Rural Broadband Act is the latest effort to coordinate rural broadband planning and policy. As I recently wrote for the New York Times, this Office of Rural Broadband is best placed inside the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) of the US Dept of Agriculture, rather than the Federal Communications Commission, as S.454 proposes. RUS has a mandate to champion rural America, and has offices and divisions in every state. RUS understands the needs of rural communities better than any federal department or agency. Placing the Office of Rural Broadband here, rather than at the FCC, would also recall an earlier time in our nation’s history when we trusted USDA to connect our rural communities with electricity and telephony through the Rural Electrification Administration, the precursor to RUS. What S 454, its forerunners, and companion pieces of proposed legislation, demonstrate is not a lack of drive to solve the problem, but rather the political will to follow through. Legislation is proposed and funding allocated, but a centralized strategy to shepherd these initiatives through to fruition remains vexingly absent. The Office of Rural Broadband Act has the potential to do this, but for it to work, we need to give this dog both bark and bite.