Hearing Room 226, Dirksen Senate Office Building
Source: Wikimedia Commons, User Satori

Sec. 101. The Committee recommends bill language that will give the Secretary of Agriculture the tools necessary to facilitate the rapid build out of broadband infrastructure and capacity to rural areas necessary to encourage their rural development needs.

The provision allows the Secretary to offer grants, loans and combinations of grants and loans to better tailor assistance to meet the needs of individual projects while making the most efficient use of available funds.

The provision gives the Secretary the ability to fund projects that operate in sparsely as well as more densely populated areas so the project can have a sufficiently large subscriber base to be operationally and financially viable and affordable to the end users.

Even though the Secretary will be allowed this flexibility, the Committee intends that it be used to enable projects to cover more unserved areas than would be otherwise served.

The Committee intends that in looking at the sufficiency of broadband service in the area, the Secretary will exclusively look at the capacity and level of service available and the area's broadband needs for sustained development and not simply at the technologies or service providers involved.

In determining the sufficiency of access to be provided, the Secretary shall take into consideration both the level of capacity required for effective rural development and the affordability of service to the end users.

The Committee believes a substantial investment in broadband is essential for sustained economic viability of rural America.