The
House Subcommittee on Communications & Technology has scheduled a hearing
May 16 on "broadband loans and grants."
Republican House leaders have expressed
concerns about how the BTOP loans and grants created by the American Recovery
and Reinvestment Act are being spent, including to what degree they are being
used to subsidize competition to existing service, and how the spending is
being monitored by the government for waste fraud and abuse. Those are the same
issues that have concerned cable operators facing potential overbuilding with
government dollars.
No word on witnesses yet, but the programs are
administered by the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and
Information Administration and the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities
Program.
"This hearing will continue the
subcommittee's ongoing oversight of how taxpayer dollars are being spent on
broadband loans and grants created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act and other subsidy programs." said the office of Energy &
Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.).
