WASHINGTON-The Bush Administration was berated Thursday by a powerful lawmaker for cutting and eliminating funding for telecommunications grants that could be used by Native Americans to improve teledensity in Indian Country.
“In the last century and the current century, Indian Country has sent to war more men and women per capita than any other ethnic group,” said Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), vice chair of the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs. “They have paid their dues. It is way past time they got the benefits.”
Inouye is a disabled World War II veteran who lost his arm in that conflict.
The president’s proposed budget suggested eliminating the Technology Opportunities Program administered by the Department of Commerce and funding to a technology grant program administered by the Department of Education. It also proposed cutting funding for grants from the Rural Utilities Service, a unit of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“The president’s budget reflected a belief that TOP’s mission has been accomplished,” said Kelly Levy, assistant administrator of the office of policy analysis and development in the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, a unit of the Commerce Department.
“These initiatives should continue to be funded,” said Gov. Richard Narcia of the Gila River Indian Community in Sacaton, Ariz.
Levy and Narcia both appeared before Inouye at a hearing on telecommunications in Indian County.
The TOPs program provides matching grants for telecommunications and technology programs. Some of the grants have gone to Native American communities and organizations.
One way that tribal communities may gain access to funding for telecommunications is to explicitly include Native Americans in the criteria for federal grants, said Ben Standifer, chief information officer of the Tohono O’odham Nation.
Some Native American groups are attempting to provide telecommunications to their people.
The Tribal Digital Village has deployed a wireless broadband network. “We truly believe wireless broadband is the solution,” said Denis Turner, executive director of the Southern California Tribal Chairman’s Association Tribal Digital Village based in Valley Center, Calif.
The Tribal Digital Village has cost $10 million during the last two years, said Turner. Half of the funding necessary for the village was provided by the Hewlett-Packard Foundation. In addition, a ceremony is to be held Thursday to award all of the high-school graduates with a wireless laptop.
In addition to the costs of building a telecommunications system, it is also costly to participate in proceedings at the Federal Communications Commission, said Roanne Robinson Shaddox, senior adviser of external relations of the Privacy Council.
While Michael Strand, chief executive officer and general counsel of the Montana Independent Telecommunications System, focused mostly on the challenges of serving Indian Country, he called on Congress to change the formula for universal-service subsidies so they are no longer based on the incumbent’s costs.
Incumbent local exchange carriers complain that wireless carriers receive larger subsidies to serve rural America because the wireless carriers’ costs are lower.
Gene Dejordy, vice president of regulatory affairs for Western Wireless Corp., also testified about Western’s efforts on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Dejordy said the successes at Pine Ridge could not have been achieved without support from the universal-service fund.
