NTIA is making nearly $1 billion available through the tribal broadband connectivity program, said Vice President Kamala Harris, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland during a White House event. It's part of FY 2021 appropriations (see 2012210055). Tribal governments, tribal colleges and universities, the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, tribal organizations and Alaska Native corporations are eligible for funding for broadband deployment, said a notice of funding opportunity. Funds can also be used to support digital inclusion, workforce development, telehealth and distance learning. Applications are due Sept. 1. The funds are a "down payment on the work we must do," Harris said, and "we must keep going until we connect every American household." Acting Administrator Evelyn Remaley said NTIA will "leverage its deep experience with funding broadband programs to ensure that we make significant progress in eliminating the digital divide on Tribal land.” NTIA has webinars June 16 and 17. Thursday's announcement was "a meaningful step forward," said Free Press Policy Manager Dana Floberg. BroadLand co-Chair Mignon Clyburn said "every penny spent on broadband is a down payment on a better future, and we support the White House efforts."
The White House is considering House Communications Subcommittee FCC detailee Parul Desai as a candidate for a third Democratic FCC seat, officials and lobbyists told us. Desai has been Communications’ FCC detailee since September 2019. She was previously FCC Enforcement Bureau Telecom Consumers Division deputy director, a Media Bureau Audio Division attorney adviser and the commission’s open internet ombudsperson right after its rescinded 2015 net neutrality rules took effect (see 1506150057). Desai was also a lawyer for Consumers Union and the Media Access Project. Her role as the ombudsperson is seen as a reason she’s in contention now. President Joe Biden’s eventual nominee for the third FCC Democratic slot is considered crucial to any effort to update net neutrality rules (see 2101060055). Biden also wants people of color in tech policy leadership roles, lobbyists said. Officials weren’t sure whether Desai has a better chance of getting the nod than others including DLA Piper’s Smitty Smith (see 2104280057). Biden faces pressure from Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell of Washington and other Democrats to announce nominees for FCC, FTC and NTIA vacancies. Desai and the White House didn’t comment Wednesday.
The White House believes negotiations with Senate Republicans on an infrastructure spending package “need to finish” soon and hopes “there is a clear direction on how to advance” that legislation before the Senate returns June 7, Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Tuesday. President Joe Biden plans to meet Wednesday with Senate Public Works Committee ranking member Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia on Republicans’ most recent infrastructure counteroffer, which includes $65 billion for broadband (see 2105270072), the White House said. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg also pegged June 7 as the date by which there should be “a clear direction” on talks. Jean-Pierre noted June 9, the day the House Infrastructure Committee plans to mark up a surface transportation bill, as “a relevant date in terms of the overall time frame.” This week “will be incredibly critical,” she said: There will be additional “conversations as we move forward … in the next couple days.”
President Joe Biden’s administration reduced its broadband spending ask to $65 billion Friday in a $1.7 trillion revised infrastructure proposal responding to Senate Republicans' counteroffer, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said during a news conference. The administration originally proposed $100 billion for broadband (see 2104220067), reflecting the Accessible, Affordable Internet for All Act (HR-1783/S-745) and Leading Infrastructure for Tomorrow's (Lift) America Act (HR-1848). “This is the art of seeking common ground,” Psaki told reporters. “This proposal exhibits a willingness to come down in size, giving on some areas that are important to the president ... while also staying firm in areas that are most vital to rebuilding our infrastructure and industries of the future.” This removed “investment in research and development to supply chain, manufacturing and small business,” shifting that money into “other efforts” like the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (S-1260), previously known as the Endless Frontier Act, Psaki said. A revised version of S-1260 under Senate consideration includes $49.5 billion to implement the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors for America Act and $1.5 billion for the Utilizing Strategic Allied Telecom Act.
Senate Republicans are eyeing agreeing to more broadband money in an infrastructure deal, and issues remain unresolved, Commerce Committee ranking member Roger Wicker of Mississippi told us. He was among GOP legislators who met Tuesday with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on a GOP counterproposal to President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan, which includes $100 billion for broadband (see 2103310064). “We’re looking at” increasing the broadband spending Republicans agree to, Wicker told us. He suggested add-ons could include additional money to “speed up” FCC rollout of Rural Digital Opportunity Fund money and to “speed up” fixing its broadband coverage data maps. He’s “listening but skeptical of the administration’s position about going through NTIA” to distribute additional broadband money allocated here. Much “hasn’t been fully negotiated,” Wicker said. He and Public Works Committee ranking member Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said they were encouraged by the meeting and believe they’re getting closer to an agreement with the administration. The Republicans’ original counteroffer allocated $65 billion for broadband (see 2105180070). Buttigieg and Raimondo are “digesting what we proposed, and I think the plan is for them to react to that” soon, Capito told reporters. The White House expects to “follow up with” the Republicans “later this week,” a spokesperson said. The Eliminating Barriers to Rural Internet Development Grant Eligibility (E-Bridge) Act, which Capito and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., refiled Wednesday, would remove regulatory barriers to Economic Development Administration grants for broadband deployments in a way that would allow localities to partner with the private sector (see 2005070055).
President Joe Biden revoked former President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at addressing what Trump saw as social media censorship (see 2005280060). Trump’s sought an FCC rulemaking to clarify its interpretation of liability protections under Communications Decency Act Section 230. That proceeding didn't advance during the closing days of Ajit Pai's chairmanship (see 2101050060) and hasn't seen movement. Friday's EO also nixed other Trump presidential directives. The Center for Democracy & Technology praised Biden for killing the social media EO.
The Biden-Harris administration should settle the massive Section 301 litigation that’s inundating the U.S. Court of International Trade and “alleviate the economic and social harms” the Lists 3 and 4A tariffs have caused to U.S. companies, workers and the “overall U.S. economy,” about 225 of the litigation’s more than 6,000 plaintiffs wrote President Joe Biden May 7. All the cases allege the tariffs violate the 1974 Trade Act and the 1946 Administrative Procedure Act and should be vacated and the duties refunded, said the letter. Plaintiffs are confident the court “will agree,” it said. HMTX Industries and Jasco Products, plaintiffs in the court’s designated Section 301 sample case, were lead signatories to the letter, signed mostly by small importers, but also big companies, including HP, Volkswagen and TCT Mobile, TCL’s smartphone subsidiary. Akin Gump attorneys for HMTX-Jasco declined comment Wednesday, but they made no secret in court proceedings of their desire to see the litigation move forward as expeditiously as possible because the tariffs continue to be a daily burden on importers with Lists 3 and 4A exposure. We learned that a draft of the letter was circulated to plaintiffs about a month ago, but many declined to sign because they viewed a White House settlement agreement to refund billions in paid tariffs as a long shot. Others never had the opportunity to review the draft. The White House didn’t comment.
President Joe Biden extended an emergency Tuesday, letting the Commerce Department bar transactions in the information and communications tech sector that are an unacceptable risk to national security. Former President Donald Trump implemented this in 2019 (see 1905150066). That executive order paved the way for recent FCC and Commerce actions to limit the U.S. presence of equipment from Huawei and other Chinese manufacturers. Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., meanwhile, pressed a trio of U.S. tech companies for information on their compliance with Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security’s August revisions to its restrictions on Huawei’s use of U.S. technology (see 2008170043). “The unrestricted acquisition or use in the United States of information and communications technology or services designed, developed, manufactured, or supplied by persons owned by, controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of foreign adversaries augments the ability of these foreign adversaries to create and exploit vulnerabilities in information and communications technology or services,” Biden wrote Congress. “This threat continues to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat." Wicker asked Seagate, Toshiba and Western Digital whether they consider the August BIS restrictions to bar “shipment of hard disk drives to Huawei or any affiliate without a license” and if the companies “continued shipping” gear to Huawei. He wants to know if the companies incorporate “semiconductor products” into their hard-disk drives “that the supplier knows or should know would then be incorporated into hard disk drives for subsequent shipment to Huawei.” The Semiconductors in America Coalition formed Tuesday in a bid to get Congress to fund implementation of the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors for America Act, which was included in the FY 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (see 2105110065).
Vice President Kamala Harris and acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel compared the push by President Joe Biden’s administration for universal broadband connectivity to the 1936 Rural Electrification Act. Biden tasked Harris Wednesday with leading the push for the $100 billion broadband spending component of the administration’s infrastructure proposal (see 2104290076). White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Thursday “this is something that was important to [Harris], that she wanted to take on specifically.” Rural electrification “was one of the great examples of the role of responsibility of the federal government to meet the needs of the people where they are and to invest in America in a way that we will be competitive,” Harris told reporters after a Friday event in Cincinnati. “Broadband is the next example.” Regardless "of who they vote for, with which party they registered, that's what [people] want,” Harris said. “That's what they want to see their government focus on.” Lawmakers “in the 1930’s decided that instead of waiting for the electricity divide between urban and rural areas to fix itself, they would do something about it, and they passed the Rural Electrification Act,” Rosenworcel wrote Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., on April 12 and published Friday. “This history is also a reminder that we can help build infrastructure and make change with the right policies in place. We did this with rural electrification, and we can do it again with bold action to connect all to broadband.” Policymakers “need to consider new policies to get 100 percent of us connected to broadband nationwide,” as the FCC opens up the $3.2 billion emergency broadband benefit (see 2104290085), Rosenworcel said.