Sixteen Senate Democrats introduced new legislation building on the Emergency Broadband Connections Act to ensure working families can stay online through the current economic and health crisis. The new legislation would authorize an additional $6 billion for the Emergency Broadband Benefit program, to accommodate high demand during the COVID-19 pandemic. That program provides $50 per month benefit to workers who have been laid off or furloughed during the pandemic and $75 per month on Tribal lands, along with a range of other assistance to ensure families can access critical online services. Broadband connections are essential for Americans seeking to get new jobs, and to access school, health care, and other government services. The bill also speeds up benefit approvals by providing funding to help states participate in the National Lifeline Eligibility verifier and requiring the Federal Communications Commission to coordinate with the US Department of Agriculture to set up automated connections between the National Lifeline Eligibility Verifier and the National Accuracy Clearinghouse for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Senators supporting the bill include Ron Wyden (D-OR), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Edward Markey (D-MA), Richard Durbin (D-IL), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Patty Murray (D-WA). The bill was also included in Democrats’ comprehensive legislation to expand affordable internet access. 

This guide offers an overview of federal funding options that could provide financial support to Tribal, state, and local governments and utilities in their efforts to expand broadband infrastructure. Varying dramatically in size, these funding opportunities target a wide variety of deployment scenarios and end users. The programs encompass infrastructure buildout, service subsidies, and technical planning assistance. This guide provides information on a range of funding opportunities—most of which are currently open, but some of which may be awaiting future funding. We include the latter because application deadlines and funding allocations are a moving target for many programs, and we believe there is value in being aware of programs that might be available again in the future.

[Note: This guide was published before the American Rescue Plan became law]

The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan (ARP)  includes provisions that will or could cover the cost of broadband service and devices, broadband infrastructure deployment, broadband mapping and broadband adoption. The rules for use of these funds have not yet been distributed by the authority agency:

• The Emergency Connectivity Fund ($7.171 billion) – Reimburses schools and libraries for providing free broadband service (and connected devices) to students and patrons at their homes. This Fund is likely to be used for sponsored / single payer agreements. 
• The Homeowners Assistance Fund ($9.961 billion) – Treasury will make grants to states to administer programs assisting homeowners with mortgage payments and related costs including internet service.
• The Local Fiscal Recovery Fund ($350 billion) – Treasury will distribute funds to municipalities and counties, tribes, territories and states to keep first responders, frontline health workers, teachers, and other providers of vital services safely on the job as states, local governments, Tribes, and territories roll out vaccines and fight to rebuild Main Street economies. Digital inclusion is assumed to be an eligible use of funds.
• The Coronavirus Capital Projects Fund ($10 billion) – Treasury will distribute funds to States, territories, and Tribal governments to carry out critical capital projects directly enabling work, education, and health monitoring, including remote options, in response to the pandemic. The funding could be limited to broadband and broadband adoption. 
• Institute for Museum and Library Services ($200 million) – Grant funding for necessary expenses to carry out museum and library services. 

The Consolidated Appropriations Act includes:

• The Office of Minority Broadband Initiatives ($285 Million) – Collaborate with Federal agencies to carry out broadband internet access service support programs to determine how to expand access to broadband internet access service and other digital opportunities in anchor communities.
• The Tribal Connectivity Program ($1 billion) – Grants to eligible entities to expand access to and adoption of broadband service on Tribal land; or remote learning, telework, or telehealth resources during the COVID–19 pandemic.
• Broadband Expansion to Underserved Communities ($300 million) – Grants for competitively and technologically neutral projects for the deployment of fixed broadband service that provides at least 25/3 in an eligible area (census block with at least one household or business that does not have access to 25/3).

Billions of dollars have already been directed to broadband infrastructure and affordability in stimulus legislation, and we anticipate a significant commitment to broadband deployment in the upcoming Biden infrastructure bill.  But all of this has raised two – and I think separate – fundamental questions. First, from a policy perspective, how should “broadband” be defined to determine who is considered unserved? A definition built on symmetrical speeds could dramatically expand the locations deemed “unserved”, leading to some areas being unnecessarily overbuilt while leaving fewer dollars to support areas in greater need, which tend to be rural. Second, from an allocation perspective, what broadband solutions should be preferred as dollars are allocated? Wireless networks are not built to deliver symmetrical speeds, so any mandate around symmetrical performance could undermine delivery of these efficient and robust technology solutions in hard to serve areas of the country.

Veterans across the country and in California shouldn’t have to worry they’ll go over their data caps by talking to their doctor or mental health provider online. In fact, no American or Californian should. But California’s net neutrality law is not the problem here. There are easy solutions that broadband providers could embrace that are far more effective at helping veterans and all Californians, while also complying with California’s net neutrality protections. Carriers could exempt all conversational video apps like Skype, Zoom and the Veterans Affairs’ telehealth app from people’s data caps. That way veterans, teachers, police officers, suicidal teens, retirees, people with low incomes and members of traditionally marginalized communities can all work, learn and get critical healthcare virtually. That kind of category-based zero-rating is allowed under California’s net neutrality law. This would also be better for veterans: Veterans could use the doctor or mental health provider of their choice, using whatever app they like or whatever app their health care provider uses.

The carriers had two years to work with the California AG’s Office to come up with a solution, but they did not. Instead, they waited those two years, scared the Veterans Affairs with phantoms of lost benefits, and then the Veterans Affairs’ communication got leaked to the press. That looks more like an industry using veterans as political pawns than one committed to ensuring Americans can get the life-saving online health services they need. Americans and veterans deserve better.

[Professor Barbara van Schewick is a professor of law at Stanford University and the director of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society.]

Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and Sundar Pichai testified before Congress for a hearing titled “Disinformation Nation: Social Media’s Role In Promoting Extremism And Misinformation.” If you tuned in looking for dumb questions, annoying partisan talking points, and exasperatingly squishy discussions of “misinformation” and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, you would not have been disappointed. However! The five-and-a-half-hour hearing also contained flashes of promise, when members of Congress did something they have very rarely done in these situations: drilling down on the business incentives that drive bad consequences, rather than just browbeating the companies for their content moderation decisions. Representative after representative took turns describing the relationship between monetizing user attention in order to serve personalized ads, on the one hand, and the proliferation of extreme and false material, on the other. Focusing on the attention-driven business model seems to have been a coordinated strategy among the committee’s Democrats, but they were not alone.

Apparently, the Biden team is vetting Jonathan Sallet — a former top lawyer under the Obama administration and architect of net neutrality rules — for a top antitrust post. One possible job would be heading the Department of Justice’s powerful Antitrust Division. Sallet’s name has been in the mix for that post for several weeks. The fact that he is going through the arduous vetting process means he’s being seriously considered for an influential administration role focused on competition policy. President Joe Biden also has yet to name a permanent chair for the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces both antitrust and consumer protection laws. Sallet would bring decades of experience in antitrust and technology issues. For the past two years, Sallet has worked for Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser heading up the multistate antitrust investigation into Google’s online search products. He was the principal author of the complaint that more than 30 states and territories filed in late December against Google — which takes aim at the search engine’s conduct to make inroads into emerging technologies such as connected cars and home speakers — and served as the lead lawyer on the case until Feb 2021.