Senate Approves Federal Funds for Broadband
Contact Name: Marina Altschiller
Phone: (603) 271-3375
CONCORD - Today, the Senate unanimously approved SB 445-FN which will appropriate federal funding to the broadband matching grant fund. The bill was adopted on a voice vote and will next go to the House for a public hearing.
After the vote, SB 445-FN co-sponsor Senator Tom Sherman (D-Rye) and Senator Jay Kahn (D-Keene) issued the following statements:
Senator Tom Sherman (D-Rye) stated, “Thanks to the hard work of our federal delegation, we as a legislature have the opportunity to appropriate over $122 million in federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 to expand access to broadband services across the state. Despite New Hampshire Republicans’ initial claims that they would not have voted for, or subsequently, supported ARPA, I am extremely grateful to see their change of heart when it comes to this essential funding and I continue to offer my heartfelt thank you to the hard-working Democrats representing the Granite State in Washington.”
Senator Jay Kahn (D-Keene) added, “Since the passage of SB 170 that allowed local communities to bond for the purpose of increasing broadband access to unserved and underserved areas, we have been working alongside our federal delegation to fund the local share of these investments. We are extremely grateful for the work of our federal delegation to bring this funding to New Hampshire which will significantly speed up the process of bringing high speed broadband to our rural communities.”
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