ARRA broadband grants and loans

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) appropriated $7.2 billion to map, expand, and increase access to broadband infrastructure throughout the United States. Funds were made available through three programs: the State Broadband Data and Development Grant Program (mapping), the Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP), and the NTIA Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP). Applications were due in August 2009, and across the country, more than 2,200 applications were submitted for the first wave of funding through these three programs.

For the broadband mapping funds, each state was allowed to designate only one eligible entity to receive funds. For Washington, that entity was the state Department of Information Services. The state requested approximately $2.5 million in funds. To date, seven states have received grants; Washington State is waiting for notification but expects to receive funding. NTIA will continue announcing awards on a rolling basis throughout the fall.

BTOP will provide funds for broadband infrastructure, public computer centers, and sustainable broadband adoption projects. For BTOP, the states were responsible for prioritizing the applications within their own state. Awards are expected toward the end of the year. The Governor submitted the following list of preferred applications (in order of priority):

Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation
Grays Harbor Public Development Authority
Mason County Public Utility District No. 3
Northwest Open Access Network
Public Utility District of Pend Oreille County
Snohomish County
Tacoma Housing Authority
Tincan (Public Computer Center)
Tincan (Broadband Adoption)
Tri County Economic Development District

BIP will make loans and grants for broadband infrastructure projects in rural areas. Awards also are expected toward the end of the year.

Feed-in tariffs

Electric utilities around the state have been meeting with Rep. John McCoy (D-Tulalip), the Chair of the House Technology, Energy & Communications (TEC) Committee, regarding a new subject called standard offer contracts, or feed-in tariffs. In a nutshell, feed-in tariffs are a policy mechanism intended to accelerate the development of certain types of renewable energy production by establishing a government-regulated price or tariff for kilowatt hours produced from these resources. On October 28, 2009, the US Department of Energy sponsored a webinar on feed-in tariffs which provides a good "101".

Recently, several cities and AWC sat down with the Chairman to discuss his interest in this subject. Rep. McCoy told cities he is interested in expanding the renewable energy market beyond what is possible with the passage of Initiative 937 because the initiative doesn’t include incentives and doesn’t include all technologies. The Chairman would like to encourage new power sources for the future, would like power production to occur closer to the end-user, and would like to incentivize new, small projects to bring more technology and jobs to the state.

After the Chairman completes his meetings with stakeholders on this subject, he indicated he plans to bring a feed-in tariff bill forward during the 2010 legislative session. Cities and AWC will study this subject in more depth and will participate in future discussions with the House TEC Committee. Thank you to the cities of Seattle, Tacoma, Ellensburg, and Richland for providing comments and/or attending this initial meeting.

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