Winter Could Blunt Broadband Stimulus in Some States
The effect of the $7.2 billion broadband stimulus package could be reduced by bad weather in some places -- unless the NTIA and the RUS take shortened construction seasons into account in their notice of funding availability, expected within a week. Completing broadband projects within two years, as required, is difficult in states such as Alaska and Vermont. That could hold back a program pushing for “shovel-ready projects,” efficiency and speedy job creation.
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Extreme weather prevents outdoor work in parts of Alaska about 10 months of the year. Michael Black, the state’s deputy commissioner of commerce, recently met with Tom Power, the NTIA’s chief of staff, to discuss the difficulties that the state faces in completing broadband projects within two years. Black said Power was aware the problem but said the stimulus law’s requirements don’t allow much flexibility. Another complication is that Alaska lacks paved roads in many places. States with short construction windows should get four or five years to finish stimulus projects, Black said.
Recently, Vermont’s Democratic governor, Jim Douglas, joined with the state’s congressional delegation to send a letter to Vice President Joe Biden, the administration’s point person on the stimulus, saying the state needs federal money soon, to begin broadband projects before the winter begins (CD June 17 p15). The letter said waiting until December to distribute the money puts “at risk millions of dollars worth of investment this year that will postpone the recovery of our region’s economy and the employment of thousands of people until next spring.”
Other states, like North and South Dakota, Minnesota, and Maine face similar challenges. “This is one of the variables that is certainly considered,” said Mark Tolbert, an NTIA spokesman. “We look at topography and geography and weather across the expanse of the 50 states.”
“This is nothing new, but the thing is exacerbated by the whole rush of the stimulus package,” said Hilda Legg, a consultant the Wiley Rein law firm and former RUS administrator. She ran into similar issues when she oversaw the RUS’s first broadband program, begun in 2001, but the speed with which the stimulus money is supposed to be spent creates an entirely different problem, Legg said. Long delays can increase costs and hurt otherwise sound business plans, she said.
A possible solution would be to review first the applications from states where weather poses a problem, Legg said. But that would require the NTIA and the RUS to take time to decide which states go to the head of the line, she said. Tim Warren