The House Energy & Commerce Committee plans to hold a hearing LIFT America Act infrastructure bill, which includes more big bucks for broadband.
The hearing will be held Monday, March 22, at 11 a.m. and will be via Cisco Webex vide conference.
“The LIFT America Act will help build back a better economy by investing in clean and efficient energy, safe drinking water, expanded access to broadband, and improving our nation’s health care infrastructure," said House Energy & Commerce Committee chairman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.). "I’m hopeful that this legislative framework will provide us an opportunity to work together in a bipartisan fashion to deliver an infrastructure package that will revitalize our economy and communities.”
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The broadband portion of the LIFT Act includes totals $109.3 billion, comprising $80 billion for 100% broadband deployment, plus $15 billion for next gen 911 services, $5 billion for low-interest federal loans for broadband deployment, and $9.3 billion in subsidies for "affordability" and education to make sure "everyone can afford internet service and have the knowledge and tools to use the internet in ways that meet their needs."
The FCC would be authorized to award $60 billion of that in a competitive bidding process, with the other one-fourth going to states for their own competitive bidding process.
The broadband portion also would mandate that the FCC adopt rules to collect price and network resiliency data from ISPs and incentivize those ISPs to disclose price and terms of service and it would require the FCC to come up with rules to allow E-rate to be used to fund Wi-Fi service on school buses.
