SHLB Wants $5.25B for E-rate in Next COVID-19 Bill
The Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition urged Congress to seek $5.25 billion in emergency funding for the E-rate program in the next major COVID-19 legislative package. House Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J., is circulating a discussion draft proposing…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
$2 billion of “emergency broadband benefit” (see 2004140062). SHLB Executive Director John Windhausen called the recent filed Emergency Educational Connections Act (HR-6563) “helpful,” but “more needs to be done to help our schools and libraries.” HR-6563 would create a $2 billion FCC-run Emergency Connectivity Fund, which would disperse money to schools and libraries to buy Wi-Fi hot spots and other devices. “This level of funding will not be sufficient to address the home broadband need,” Windhausen wrote Pallone and three others -- ranking member Greg Walden, R-Ore.; House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle, D-Pa.; and ranking member Bob Latta, R-Ohio. The pandemic “will likely persist at least into the fall of this year and perhaps long after that.” Funds for Learning estimates a $5.25 billion appropriation for E-rate would “cover broadband connection costs for all 7 million households that do not have Internet access at home for one year, plus an Internet-enabled device for each student, and network security,” Windhausen said.