Subcommittee Looks at Legislation Promoting Broadband Infrastructure Buildout

On April 19, the U.S. House Communications & Technology Subcommittee held a hearing titled "Breaking Barriers: Streamlining Permitting To Expedite Broadband Deployment." On the legislative agenda for the hearing was some 30 Republican discussion draft bills and two Democratic bills. The subcommittee's attention to the importance of policies that promote the construction and upgrade of broadband infrastructure – and that eliminate unreasonable barriers to building new facilities and upgrading existing ones – is welcome.

No doubt there are geographic, population, and other economic conditions that play into timely broadband deployment. But careful attention to permitting and other regulatory policies regarding wireline and wireless broadband infrastructure buildout should be a component of a pro-market, pro-innovation, pro-investment federal policy for encouraging broadband access for all Americans.

Information about those legislative measures is contained in the hearing memo that available on the subcommittee's webpage. The high number of draft bills and bills precludes specific discussions particular each one, but several such bills previously have been introduced in Congress, at least in substantially similar form. The legislation under review at the hearing included streamlining the approval process for deploying infrastructure on federal lands, imposing shot clocks for decisionmaking on infrastructure permit applications by local permitting authorities, and legislative codification of specific infrastructure citing reforms adopted by FCC. 

 

Hopefully, the House Communications & Technology Subcommittee's hearing will be the prelude to a near-future advancement of legislation that will boost enable more timely deployment and reduce unnecessary harmful obstacles to next-gen broadband buildout. 

 

The Chairman of the House Communications & Technology Subcommittee is Rep. Bob Latta, who delivered a keynote address at the Free State Foundation's Fifteenth Annual Policy Conference – #FSFConf15 – held on March 28. Video of his keynote is available online. 

 

For publications by Free State Foundation scholars on infrastructure siting reforms, see the June 2022 Perspectives from FSF Scholars, "The FCC Should Preserve and Expand Its Broadband Infrastructure Reforms" by former FSF colleague Andrew K. Magloughlin and I. Also still very relevant today is the July 2021 Perspectives from FSF Scholars, "Real Infrastructure Opportunity for Congress: Speed Deployments of 5G Network," co-authored by FSF President Randolph May and I. Additionally, in a June 2021 Perspectives from FSF Scholars, FSF President May and I address fundamental legal issues connected to this topic in "Wireless Infrastructure Reforms Rest on Solid Constitutional Foundations: Congress Should Preempt Local Obstacles to 5G Deployment."