[RTC List] US Internet stimulus money gets White House direction

[Connie Stewart]

US Internet stimulus money gets White House direction

By Fawn Johnson, Dow Jones Newswires

 

Thursday 21 May 2009

 

NTIA advisor says aim is to create easy-to-use, accessible electronic

form for broadband grants.

 

President Barack Obama is embarking on an ambitious plan to blanket

the country with high-speed Internet, causing unprecedented

coordination among agencies charged with doling out start-up money to

cities and nonprofits.

 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Commerce Department plan

to treat the $7.2 billion they share in broadband funding as a single

grant and loan program, with the ultimate goal of a common

application, according to officials at both agencies.

 

The aim is to create an easy-to-use, accessible electronic form for

the broadband grants, according to Mark Seifert, senior advisor at

the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information

Administration, or NTIA.

 

Seifert said the application process would be straightforward,

leaving the complexities about the source of funding to the staff of

both NTIA and USDA.

 

The two departments plan to evaluate the Internet applications

together. In some cases, applicants could receive money from both

agencies for different parts of their proposed projects.

 

Companies that could benefit from Internet grants and loans include

mid-sized firms such as Level 3 Communications Inc., wireless

companies like Sprint Nextel Corp., and possibly large incumbents

like Verizon Communications Inc.

 

USDA and NTIA aren't acting in a vacuum. The White House has brought

in the Departments of Energy, Transportation, Health and Human

Services, and Housing and Urban Development, among others, to talk

about how those agencies can incorporate Internet buildout into their

own activities.

 

"It's extremely helpful to have the White House engaged," said David

Lazarus, a senior advisor to Agriculture Secretary Tom

Vilsack."Shared activity shouldn't be precluded because of silos,"

within which separate agencies don't communicate.

 

Susan Crawford, a member of the president's National Economic Council

and well-known Internet expert, has been the most active among White

House aides in helping different agencies come together.

 

Other White House officials also have stepped in, including staffers

from the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Science

and Technology Policy.

 

Officials at Commerce and USDA say they are looking to fund Internet

projects that "leverage" activities across different agencies. If HUD

is reworking the electrical connections in a housing facility, why

not fund a company or nonprofit to wire those units for the Internet

at the same time?

 

The Transportation Department is most likely to have in hand "shovel

ready" road projects where it would cost relatively little to lay

Internet cable under new asphalt. The economic stimulus measure put

$27.5 billion toward highway construction.

 

Piggy-backing on related stimulus programs in other federal agencies

could create the kind of synergy Obama envisioned on the campaign

trail. In the medical arena, for example, high-speed Internet

connections to physicians' clinics from remote areas could save

millions in taxpayer dollars.

 

Partnerships with so-called "anchor institutions" such as hospitals,

colleges, and police and fire departments, may be a critical factor

in determining whether applicants' have a workable Internet buildout plan.

 

"The statute requires that we ensure the project continues after the

last day of federal funding," NTIA's Seifert said."Partnering with

anchor institutions may help demonstrate an adequate base of income

to show that a project is viable and sustainable."

 

The Commerce Department and USDA have been acting in tandem at every

step in rolling out the Internet grants. That partnership is likely

to continue when they publish their notices of funding availability,

the formal starting gun for people competing for stimulus money.

 

The new approach poses some challenges. USDA has for several years

been giving out Interent loans in rural areas, while the grant

program is new to the Commerce Department.

 

It is an open question whether the USDA can handle the $2.5 billion

it is charged with dispersing over the next year and a half, almost

twice the total amount it has distributed over the last five years.

 

The USDA's existing Internet loan program recently came under fire

from the USDA Inspector General for giving out loans in areas where

private Internet service providers were already present.

 

Industry critics who have tried to use the USDA's Internet loan

program said it is almost impossible to navigate, requiring

applicants to compile dozens of binders of documentation simply to be

considered for a loan.

 

USDA officials said they are responding to critics by updating the

existing Internet loan program and drafting brand new guidelines on

how to apply for stimulus dollars.

 

The new rules governing the stimulus grants and loans will be

informed by USDA's past experience, but won't mirror it, officials at

both USDA and Commerce said.

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://redwoodtech.org/pipermail/list_redwoodtech.org/attachments/20090521/efdc4591/attachment.html>