NTCA Praises ACCESS Rural America Act’s Senate Passage
Randy Sukow
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The U.S. Senate passed by unanimous consent the Access to Capital Creates Economic Strength and Supports (ACCESS) Rural America Act (S. 3242), a measure to cut down on regulatory requirements for smaller rural broadband providers. However, the House version of the bill has yet to move out of the Committee on Financial Services. With time running out in the 118th Congress, it appears likely that rural regulatory relief will remain an issue in the next session.
“Federal Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC] registration and reporting requirements intended for larger, publicly traded firms pose significant challenges for, and can impose substantial burdens on, smaller, locally owned companies with limited resources … Passing the ACCESS Rural America Act will help relieve these burdens and enable small providers to focus more on their core mission of deploying and operating advanced broadband networks in rural areas,” Shirley Bloomfield, CEO of NTCA – The Rural Broadband Association said in a statement following Senate passage.
Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Joni Ernst (R-IA), lead authors of the bipartisan measure, held out hope that the legislation could be enacted before the end of the session. “Access to high-speed internet is no longer a luxury—it’s a necessity for Wisconsinites to work, attend school online, run their businesses, manage their farms, and connect with people across the world,” Baldwin said. “I worked hard with my Republican colleagues to get this bill passed out of the Senate and now, we are fighting to get it to the president’s desk and deliver for Wisconsin families.”
Specifically, the bill would streamline certain SEC filings for rural telcos providing internet service. It would also exempt them from other SEC registration and reporting requirements. The cause of relieving regulatory requirements for rural telcos is making progress. Baldwin and Ernst introduced similar legislation during the previous Congress in 2022, but it failed to make it past committee.
