Vilsack Helps Kicks Off Rural Broadband Initiative

Hold on to your hats republican folk, Obama's doing yet something else. He's walking and chewing like 10 pieces of gum. Okay, now I'm getting punchy.

U.S. Department of Agriculture Sec. Tom Vilsack, Acting Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Copps and U.S. Dept. of Commerce Senior Advisor and Acting Chief of Staff Rick Wade kicked off the joint broadband initiative under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act today and announced a series of public meetings that will give Americans an opportunity to help shape the program.

"President Obama's commitment to expanding broadband service to rural areas will provide rural communities with access to worldwide markets and the education, first responder, and health care resources they need to prosper and compete," Vilsack said. "The Department of Agriculture stands ready to partner with the Department of Commerce and Federal Communications Commission to support the President's goal to deploy high-speed internet service in rural and unserved communities."

The U.S. Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Utility Services (RUS) today also released a Joint Request for Information and Notice of Public Meetings (RFI), which invites comments from interested parties on the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) and the RUS grants and loans program established in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. To encourage public participation, the RFI sets a schedule of public meetings from March 16-24. That will give Americans an opportunity to discuss how NTIA and the Rural Utility Service should design and implement these programs. Each of these meetings will feature a roundtable discussion and an opportunity for public comment.

The meetings will be webcast, and as part of the effort to broaden public input, the March 17 meeting will be held in Las Vegas, Nev., with the following day's meeting scheduled for Flagstaff, Ariz. Read more

Other Vilsack news: transcript and video of the announcement of how the stimulus will help low income families and rural development here. $145 million will go to increasing the average SNAP payment (a food program for low income families). $25 million for food banks. On the reinvestment side, $980 million will go to forest maintenance, which will create 1,500 jobs, mostly for young workers. $1.1 billion for single family housing in rural America. $145 million for farm loans. And so much more.