Sens Hatch, Daines, Fischer introduce critical rural broadband bill

Sens Orrin Hatch (R-UT),Steve Daines (R-MT), and Deb Fischer (R-NE) introduced the Highway Rights-of-Way Permitting Efficiency Act of 2017 (S 604), a bill that will streamline broadband permitting in existing highway rights-of-way for broadband infrastructure projects. Bill details:
State Permitting Authority: In pulling from the successful FHWA “NEPA Delegation Program,” which delegates federal environmental compliance to a state, this bill allows a state to opt-in to an agreement to take on the responsibility of environmental review—on behalf of the relevant federal agency.
Categorical Exclusion: Provides a categorical exclusion for any broadband project within an existing operational ROW.
Federal Broadband Permit Coordination; Designates a lead agency in the federal permitting process, regardless of whether a state opts-in to the “State Permitting Authority” agreement; This will consolidate efforts from the executive branch and create a single POC for a given broadband deployment project, intending to drive efficiencies into the permitting process.