Two sets of proposed budget amendments that dropped in the General Assembly on Friday would deal with issues that are holding up broadband deployment to Virginia’s rural locations — including who pays for utility poles.
One set of amendments, filed in both the Senate and the House of Delegates, would earmark $60 million in fiscal years 2025 and 2026 from the federal Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program, or BEAD, for Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s proposed biennial budget, to help pay for the work.
The other, also proposed in each chamber, would add about $29.7 million in 2025 and about $49.7 million the following fiscal year to the Virginia Telecommunication Initiative, or VATI, the repository for broadband project funding. The money would come from the state’s general fund. Youngkin’s 2026 fiscal year budget removed all state funding from VATI, but Sen. Jennifer Boysko, D-Fairfax County, proposed the amendment and said in a Friday phone call that she wanted the 2026 money restored. Del. Paul Krizek, D-Alexandria, carried a similar request to the House.
Virginia leaders in fiscal 2022 injected about $750 million of state and federal money into VATI. The idea, born in part from the pandemic-era issues with internet access during the shutdowns, created a massive market for internet service providers to run broadband fiber both across utility poles and underground. The aerial lines have caused friction among some ISPs, electric cooperatives and municipal power providers, particularly centered on who pays for pole replacements and new poles, and how much they pay.
The work involves hundreds of thousands of poles at five-figures prices per mile.
Leaders among the co-ops said that they were concerned that replacing some of their older poles would force them to charge their customers higher rates. Money in both sets of amendments would address that issue.
“It would certainly help them get where they need to be,” said Boysko, who chairs the joint Broadband Advisory Committee and has been a member since 2016, when she was a freshman in the House. “And that was my purpose, right? We want everybody to be made whole. We want to make sure that we’re getting the infrastructure completed so that our constituents across the commonwealth have access to broadband, so they can do their jobs, so they can do telework, so that our farms can have access to the internet and do the things that they need. It’s really important.”
Boysko said the proposed amendments would complement each other in the budget. Sen. David Marsden, D-Fairfax, entered the BEAD-related proposal, with Del. David Bulova, D-Fairfax County, carrying it in the House.
“My budget amendment is focusing specifically on the ongoing projects that are already underway,” Boysko said. “My understanding is that [Marsden’s and Bulova’s] proposal is really looking at BEAD funding, which we have not harnessed yet, to put a large portion of that toward … ‘make ready’ work for future projects.”
Virginia is set to receive $1.48 billion in BEAD funding, with the Department of Housing and Community Development, which is responsible for assuring broadband access, expecting to announce awards between late summer and early fall. Infrastructure — such as the “make ready” process of inspecting poles and preparing them to carry extra lines, and adding new poles where needed — will be part of the outlay, but affordability, workforce shortages and other issues are also part of that federal grant.
Boysko’s proposal, which she said she carried for the Virginia Association of Counties, provides “funding for ‘make ready’ costs, including pole replacements, in areas served by not-for-profit public utilities.” The funding “may be used to supplement previously awarded projects.”
Marsden’s proposal calls for awarding up to $30,000 per mile for pole replacements and new pole installations, or 75% of the total amount, whichever is less, and awarding up to $30,000 per mile for underground installations.
Marsden also on Friday dropped SB 713, his version of a bill that seeks to address pole replacement issues and timing concerns. House Majority Leader Charnielle Herring, D-Alexandria, earlier in January filed HB 800, which would apply Federal Communications Commission-style regulations to the commonwealth’s 13 electric cooperatives, but have the State Corporation Commission administer them.
The FCC rules already apply to such multistate, investor-owned utilities as Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power, on whose poles ISPs also are stringing broadband cable. Its rules require that after pole inspections and engineering analyses, it should take no more than 165 days before workers can string the fiber. The FCC also requires that internet providers and utilities agree to “the reasonable, actual cost” of any pole rearrangement required to string up the cables — the House and Senate bills also reference that aspect.
The cooperatives oppose both bills, but say they appreciate the budget amendments’ patrons, according to a spokeswoman for the Virginia, Maryland and Delaware Association of Broadband Cooperatives.
“We are very grateful for the patrons of these budget amendments as we try to work towards alternative proposals that will prevent rural ratepayers from bearing the cost of this important broadband work,” a statement from the association reads. “The cost shifting provisions of HB800 and SB713 are deeply harmful to our co-ops and its members, and we are supportive of the policies that will keep rates low and expand broadband across Virginia.”
The Virginia Poverty Law Center had expressed worries that the bills would affect power rates for poor co-op customers. Albert Pollard, a contract lobbyist for the law center, said that Marsden’s proposed amendment appeared to address that issue.
“The nice thing, you know, these are federal dollars so they’re not coming from schools or sheriffs,” Pollard said. He had not seen Boysko’s proposal. “It’s a great solution to the make ready problem.”
It’s early in the process yet, as neither the House nor the Senate has released its own budget proposal.
