WASHINGTON-The Senate late Thursday approved a spending bill rider that partially restores funding to a rural broadband loan program.
The agriculture appropriations amendment, co-sponsored by Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-S.D.) and Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), increases by $6 million the amount of money for administering the Department of Agriculture’s rural broadband loan program. The bill had reduced program spending from $20 million to $9 million annually. The added funding will enable the department to support approximately $611 million in new loan authority for fiscal 2004, up from the $335 million that would have been available had Dorgan and Burns not intervened.
“The opportunity to do that is critically important to small areas, rural areas of the country in order for them to attract economic opportunity and economic development. Without it, they are consigned to a future without that kind of economic opportunity,” said Dorgan. “That is why we are trying to provide it here, just as we did in the underlying 1996 act, which I helped write. We talked about advanced services then, comparable services at comparable rates. You have broadband in most big cities now. The question is, will rural areas have the same opportunities?”
The Wireless Communications Association applauded the passage of the rural broadband amendment.
“We are very grateful for the leadership provided by Sens. Dorgan and Burns to help restore the broadband loan program closer to the level provided under current law,” said WCA President Andrew Kreig. “However, it is unfortunate that the program is still in jeopardy because of the devastating language in the House bill. We still have a lot of work to do to restore the farm bill program and to reject the language in the House bill that would prohibit the processing of existing applications.”
