Bill Would Set Up Trust Fund for Advanced IT and Pubcasters
After years of lobbying, backers of a trust for funding education and training using advanced technologies and public broadcast have gotten Congress to weigh a bill embracing all but one of their aims. HR-3631, by Reps. John Yarmuth, D- Ky., and Ralph Regula, R-Ohio, doesn’t tie funding to proceeds of spectrum auctions, as Digital Promise and allies sought.
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The Revolutionizing Education Through Digital Investment Act of 2007 would mandate creation of the National Center for Learning Science and Technology, a nonprofit funded by a federally underwritten trust. The bill would authorize appropriation to the fund of “such sums as may be necessary” FY 2008 through FY 2012. The bill’s other sponsors are Reps. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., Edward Markey, D-Mass., Mike Honda, D-Calif., Rick Boucher, D-Va., Ben Chandler, D-Ky., and Bart Gordon, D-Tenn.
The fund would be run by a nine-member board named by the Secretary of Education. Private- and public-sector candidates would be expected to offer broad regional, professional, occupational representation, as well as a variety of skills.
Money from the trust could go for contracts and grants to colleges and universities, museums, public broadcast entities and libraries. Public broadcasters had sought a trust based on public TV stations’ early return of analog spectrum. But when Congress set a hard date for analog shut- off they dropped that goal, endorsing Digital Promise’s campaign.
The bill has no spectrum money attached, but Digital Promise Executive Director Anne Murphy called it a “good first step.” Her group will lobby again for spectrum money after the next election, positioning itself for the 2011 auction, she added. Murphy declined to discuss how much money Digital Promise will be seeking on the first go-round, but in the past the group has pegged the cost of a three-year pilot testing implementation of the trust at $500 million, with $15 million to $20 million in start-up outlays.