Internet Construction Funding Bottleneck

Jonathan Adelstein, the FCC commissioner tapped by President Obama to head up the Rural Utilities Service within the Department of Agriculture, acknowledged today that FCC has been too slow in funding Bush era projects for health information technology in rural areas. Of 69 projects for which funds were appropriated, only 37 are in the vendor selection process and only one has actually been funded thus far. This does not bode well for the pace of spending the $7.2 billion appropriated for rural broadband construction projects in the economic stimulus legislation. The bulk of these projects are to be administered by RUS, under Adelstein's leadership.