Agenda

The Secretary of the Treasury is issuing this interim final rule to implement the Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Fund and the Coronavirus Local Fiscal Recovery Fund established under the American Rescue Plan Act. The funds may be used to make necessary investments in water, sewer, or broadband infrastructure. The interim final rule provides that eligible investments in broadband are those that are designed to provide services meeting adequate speeds and are provided to unserved and underserved households and businesses.

President Joe Biden asked a group of Republican senators to flesh out their $568 billion infrastructure proposal with additional details, including how they would pay for it, a step that could begin more substantive negotiations on the issue. President Biden said that he was optimistic the group could reach a reasonable agreement and planned to discuss a more detailed offer from the Republican senators next week.

Charter Communications CEO Tom Rutledge warned the operator expects to face a range of challenges as it presses ahead with Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) subsidized broadband buildouts. In December 2020, Charter won $1.2 billion in Phase I of the Federal Communications Commission’s RDOF auction to fuel broadband deployments across 24 states. Rutledge stressed the size of the undertaking, and he noted the rural nature of the markets it is set to cover will make construction harder. “Physically getting it done is a big deal,” he said.

The new broadband affordability programs [the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program and the Emergency Connectivity Fund] are just temporary — and advocates say lawmakers need to develop a long-term program that will ensure low-income Americans can afford the Internet. “We’re not going back to 2019,” said Benton Senior Fellow and Public Advocate Gigi Sohn. “The digital divide doesn’t end when the pandemic ends.