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Outreach From Chao

Trump Administration Embraces Broadband as Infrastructure Effort Gains Momentum

President Donald Trump’s “bold, broad view of infrastructure” includes broadband, a White House spokesman told us Thursday. The official declined to say whether any broadband funding in Trump’s much-discussed $1 trillion infrastructure plan would be funneled to FCC USF or other programs. The White House previously said it was considering broadband for its infrastructure package (see 1702230059), and bicameral and bipartisan congressional pressure all year pushed the White House to make broadband a priority.

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The administration seems to be stepping up efforts on infrastructure in recent days, with Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao emerging as one emissary on the plan and specifically invoking broadband intentions. Trump told The New York Times in an interview published Wednesday a proposal is coming “soon” but “we haven’t made a final determination,” including on the plan’s role for public-private partnerships. During a town hall of CEOs Tuesday, Trump said his infrastructure proposal would be “maybe more” than $1 trillion. Chao said at the event a package could be coming as soon as next month, media reported.

Trump “has made one of his top priorities the modernization of outdated infrastructure,” Chao said Wednesday before an American Association of Port Authorities event, according to prepared remarks. “His infrastructure package -- which will be announced later this year -- will include a strategic, targeted program of investment valued at $1 trillion over 10 years. The proposal will cover more than transportation infrastructure -- it will include … broadband.”

Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., met with Chao this week. “I outlined how the Move America Act would help states finance infrastructure projects by leveraging private-sector dollars, he said Wednesday in a statement, citing a measure he hopes to reintroduce this Congress. “We need to build and repair infrastructure around our country, and the Move America Act could help finance these important projects.”

I spent just an hour with Secretary Chao,” House Transportation Committee Chairman Bill Shuster, R-Pa., said during a subcommittee hearing Wednesday. “She came and briefed about 45 members of Congress, she talked about the infrastructure bill and how important it is to the president. … There’s a federal component to it, obviously, and we’ve got to figure the revenues out, how we get more revenues. Public-private partnerships are a tool in the toolbox, but it’s not the toolbox. It’s a good tool, we need to make it better. And figuring out how to unleash the private dollars.”

Some Democrats cast doubts. “I would suggest that we invite [Chao] to meet with all members of this committee so we can have a collaborative effort and continue to be bipartisan in our effort,” Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., said during the Transportation Committee hearing Wednesday. “Maybe then they wouldn’t have the problem they had with the healthcare bill.” House Transportation Committee ranking member Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., led a letter with Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., to Chao Wednesday saying they were “disturbed” at Chao’s remarks that money isn't the problem so much as permitting difficulties: “We cannot streamline our way out of our funding shortfall.” House Commerce Committee Democrats also repeatedly pushed for direct funding, and committee ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., derided that “there is no infrastructure bill,” during a spectrum hearing Wednesday. He said Trump is more interested in orders and actions that undo measures than putting anything forward. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, was dubious about whether any package could come together, during a speech in February. “Where is the infrastructure bill?” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., asked during a news briefing Thursday.

Investors say there is ample capital available, waiting to invest in infrastructure projects," Chao said Wednesday. "So the problem is not money. It’s the delays caused by government permitting processes that hold up projects for years, even decades, making them risky investments. That’s why a critical part of the president’s infrastructure plan will include common-sense regulatory, administrative, organizational and policy changes.”

Other federal players are Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and FCC Chairman Ajit Pai (see 1702220054). “Any direct funding for broadband infrastructure appropriated by Congress as part of a larger infrastructure package” should be funneled into the USF and “targeted to areas that lack high-speed Internet access,” Pai said last month in a speech, also urging inclusion of his gigabit opportunity zones proposal. Senators raised the prospect of broadband’s role in infrastructure legislation during the January confirmation hearings of both Chao and Ross. A Commerce Department spokesman declined comment other than to point to Commerce’s broadband focus through FirstNet. NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield, who testified before Congress on the matter this year and in a blog post referred to many visits to the White House on broadband infrastructure, said she's "bullish" on a package coming together (see 1704050002).

Congress should consider setting aside a modest portion of any new infrastructure fund, say $20 billion, for a one-time rural broadband acceleration program” where companies “would be offered subsidies to build out in rural areas currently without a broadband provider, with the requirement of implementing technologies with sufficient bandwidth to support future growth, perhaps up to 100 Mbps speeds,” wrote Brookings Institution senior fellow Blair Levin and Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy project director Larry Downes in a joint piece for The Washington Post published Wednesday. “To avoid problems that plagued the Recovery Act’s scattered broadband initiatives, the acceleration program should be managed entirely by one agency, with strict controls to help ensure troubled projects get attention (or cut off) sooner rather than later.” They urged against ongoing support and for market mechanisms, dig once and climb once policies and tech neutrality, with a focus on the “nonfinancial causes of the digital divide” and the “digital want-nots.”