Broadband Project Priorities Said to Call for State Help
The NTIA and the RUS should rely on state suggestions on handing out the $7.2 billion in broadband-stimulus money quickly and effectively, speakers said Friday at the NCTA convention in Washington.
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Governors and utility commissions are attuned to the broadband needs of their states, said Brad Ramsey, the general counsel of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. The NTIA should use some of the $350 million it’s getting for administration to hire help in states, Ramsey said. In the end, though, the NTIA must have the final say on grants, he said.
Opponents said giving the states an advisory role poses a conflict of interest because states will be applying for the federal money, alongside municipalities and private companies. “We caution policy makers from giving states too broad a role,” said Ron Thaniel, the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ assistant executive director. “We have competing interests.”
There’s still much confusion about the best way to distribute the large amounts of money as quickly as required. “We are flying the plane as we are building it,” said David Quam, the National Governors Association’s director of federal relations. Asked whether each agency got the right amount of money, Jeff Arnold, the National Association of Counties’ deputy legislative director, said, “We don’t know and they don’t know.”
The stimulus distribution is being done “in reverse,” because the NTIA and the RUS are starting with the money and then developing a plan, said John Russell, government affairs adviser to the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors.