Enjoy retirement, Sen. Hoyle!
Good news: Senator Hoyle’s anti-competition broadband bill is dead!
Let me see if I can summarize what took place early this morning. S.1209 and H.1840 both languished in the Broadband Connectivity House committee and never made it back to the floor. That’s all good. Then last night the House added a broadband study provision to the S900 studies bill, a provision which did not require a moratorium or study report be issued. The senate approved this and all seemed good.
Then an hour later Sen. Clodfelter gutted H.455, which was a “Kidney Awareness” bill, and inserted the “study” portion of S.1209, among other things. Clodfelter’s changes differed from the S.900 changes by requiring a report or suggested legislation by March 2011. The House did not concur. Though a committee report, a provision in H.455 favorable to municipal broadband was salvaged and that’s what was passed in H.455. End result: no moratorium and no report or new legislation required!
A big thanks to Reps Hackney, Holliman, Luebke, Weiss, Faison and Bryant in the House and Senators Snow, Atwater, Vaughn, and Queen (among many others) in the Senate. Now there’s a little time to put some law around municipal Internet and better hold off these challenges.