Rural broadband survives GOP challenge

WASHINGTON — A program that has helped spread high-speed Internet service in Northern New York and other rural areas has survived a challenge in Congress.

The Rural Utilities Service’s rural broadband program will see $6 million in funding for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, thanks to a spending bill lawmakers passed last week. A fraction of the $22 million approved for last year, the funding at least keeps the program going.

Maintaining the program was a victory for congressional Democrats and a handful of Republicans led by Rep. Christopher P. Gibson, R-Kinderhook, who argued that flaws in how the program has been run in recent years should not spell its end.

Mr. Gibson and Rep. William L. Owens, D-Plattsburgh, had fought to have funding restored after the House Appropriations Committee eliminated it in a spending bill covering agriculture and rural development programs.

The program’s survival means that a funding stream, albeit limited, will continue for companies like Slic Network Solutions, which has used federal funding to expand high-speed Internet Service in St. Lawrence County.

Mr. Gibson and Mr. Owens have said the program is an important part of keeping Northern New York and other rural areas competitive in seeking industry and other employers. In a recent interview, Mr. Gibson touted the program’s survival and noted that, as a freshman congressman, he was up against senior leaders on the Appropriations Committee.

Critics say the program has not focused adequately on rural areas, citing a U.S. Government Accountability Office report detailing funds that went to big-city suburbs. A group called the Taxpayers Protection Alliance spent the spring urging lawmakers to do away with the program, which expanded as part of the Obama administration’s economic stimulus in 2009.

In addition, the conservative activist Andrew Breitbart’s Web site, biggovernment.com, suggested the program just adds more broadband service to areas that already receive it from private developers. The Website refers to “the insanity of so-called broadband stimulus projects.”

The St. Lawrence County Chamber of Commerce earlier this year urged Mr. Owens and Mr. Gibson to fight for rural broadband, saying the migration of people to more technologically progressive areas could decimate the north country’s rural landscape.

Mr. Gibson’s and Mr. Owens’s effort managed to keep the program in the House version of the bill, increasing the odds that it would survive a House-Senate conference committee.