Infrastructure Bank Idea Key Way to Fund Broadband Deployment, Klobuchar Says

ways to finance,” Klobuchar said in a video of her remarks, mentioning she wants to look at USF and “see if we can do more there through FCC or congressional action.” She said creating a national infrastructure funding bank is a priority for the beginning of next Congress in 2017. “That would be a way to finance some major action,” said Klobuchar, a member of the Commerce Committee. “If we do that infrastructure bank, we can find a way for broadband to get itself in there somehow.” Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton proposed such a bank, and Klobuchar told us last month she's committed to advancing Clinton’s broader infrastructure plans for the first 100 days of the new Congress (see 1609230040). Klobuchar also noted broadband infrastructure funding opportunities during a September event of the Senate Broadband Caucus (see 1609220043), which on Tuesday she said would help spur action: “When people come together like that, it just sort of sends a message that we need to move on something.” She called Rural Utilities Service and USF funding in Minnesota “huge money coming in federally and we want that to continue.” Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., and she successfully rallied senators to pressure the FCC to act on stand-alone broadband, which the agency did, she said. “It certainly doesn’t solve all our problems and there’s some implementation issues coming out of that that we’re dealing with,” she said of the FCC USF overhaul, citing her push at an oversight hearing last month to get Chairman Tom Wheeler to share more information with small rate of return companies.