Congressional & State BTOP Recommendations
from
StimulatingBroadband.com
____________________________________________________________
Coming Soon: Our full inventory of all recommendations by state and territorial governors to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) for requested funding priorities under the broadband stimulus program.
Under NTIA rules, the agency consulted with states, territories, and tribal governments as to funding under the program. While Round 2 recommendations were released by the agency in the Spring of 2010 soon after their transmittal to Washington, Round 1 recommendations have not been released by NTIA. Starting in October of 2009, StimulatingBroadband.com assembled the most complete inventory available to the public of recommendations from the states and territories to the agency. NTIA has never given a clear public statement of why these documents, communications between chief executives of the states and a federal agency about the use of public monies, have never been released. We were able to secure and publish some Round 1 state documents only after invoking public records laws in various jurisdictions. Some states and territories continue to refuse to release their recommendations even now, after all awards have been issued.
A final note on an issue that is often misunderstood: NTIA's sister agency managing the broadband stimulus program, the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, did not seek gubernatorial recommendations for its funding under the program. This does not mean that certain governors did not send recommendation letters to RUS for individual projects. They certainly did. These letters however have not been released by RUS, as they are part of the individual application packages still retained by the agency and not released to the public.
Here Now: Congressional recommendations for broadband stimulus grant and loan awards became nearly required for a successful application to either NTIA or RUS.
To date the best single resource of all such recommendations, gleaned from federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) filings to NTIA, as been compiled by the Center for Public Integrity (CPI). The Center has done important work. To date CPI has sought and published congressional recommendations to NTIA. StimulatingBroadband.com is working to publish the file of congressional communications to RUS. Their link to the compilation is embedded below.
____________________________________________________________
