Tribes Hope More Dollars Will Flow Their Way in Second Stimulus Round
Tribal leaders are concerned about how few American Indian tribes have won broadband stimulus grants. Native Americans have a meeting at the U.S. Department of Agriculture scheduled for Tuesday to discuss possible changes in the Rural Utilities Service’s Broadband Infrastructure Program.
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About 25 tribes applied for BIP money and more than 60 applications mentioned service to native areas, officials of the Native American Broadband Association said Thursday. Only one was successful: the Rivada SeaLion project, which received a $25.3 million grant from the RUS to provide wireless high-speed broadband to 53 communities in southwestern Alaska. The Pine Telephone Co., which won a $9.5 million grant from the agency to put broadband infrastructure in remote areas of southeast Oklahoma, promises to serve Choctaws.
The RUS tried to make changes to the BIP program for the second round to help Native groups, but the notice of funding availability for the second funding round “confused the issue” instead of clarifying it, said Harold Pruner, chairman of the broadband association. “It looks they have further handicapped us or made the situation worse.”
Pruner said some tribes reported being rejected because they weren’t considered remote enough to justify funding. Many still don’t know whether they won grants in the first round. “Some people who have applied have not been told whether they were rejected or not,” he said. “We have tribes saying, ‘I don’t know whether to reapply for what I planned for in the first round, because I don’t know whether I won or not.'” Tribal leaders last year asked the RUS to hold a workshop in Indian territory but were turned down, Pruner said.
“When we saw the recovery act provisions, our hope was tribes who had been ignored for so long when it comes to telecommunications needs were finally going to get something,” said NABA President Mark Pruner. “If you look at the results of the first round so far, that hasn’t been the case.” He noted that the RUS’ 58-page funding notice mentions tribes only five times and earmarks no money to them.
Competition has been tough for broadband funds. The RUS and the NTIA together received more than 2,200 requests in round one, asking for $28 billion, four times the size of the program.