Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and House Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) said Thursday that they are amenable to the Federal Communications Commission's request to delay completion of the National Broadband Plan until March 17, 2010.
"Congress tasked the Federal Communications Commission to develop a national broadband plan to make sure all Americans have access to broadband and to establish benchmarks to reach that goal," Chairman Rockefeller said. "Broadband access is enormously critical to our country's economic growth and can significantly improve countless lives by expanding employment opportunities, health care, education and government services. Crafting an effective national broadband plan is a challenging and important task. Chairman Genachowski has indicated that a short delay is necessary to qualitatively improve the plan. I support his efforts."
According to sources, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, was said to be OK with the delay so long as the result at the end of the day was a report with meat on the bone and not just a "plan for a plan."
Chairman Waxman called the extension modest and said he supported it "given the critical importance of this endeavor and the need to consider a record unprecedented in size and scope."
"Apparently the volume of public comments submitted to the commission will require a longer period for review that the original schedule for formulating the national broadband plan permitted," said House Commerce Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher (D-VA).
