WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Joni Ernst (R-IA) introduced bipartisan legislation to expand access to broadband in rural areas and ease the burden of regulatory costs for smaller broadband providers that rural communities rely on.

“Wisconsinites in every corner of our state depend on reliable, high-speed internet to run their businesses, attend school, manage their farms, and so much more,” said Senator Baldwin. “Unfortunately, burdensome regulations intended for much larger companies are hurting our small broadband providers and limiting their ability to reach more people. My bipartisan bill cuts through that red tape and helps our local providers expand access to high speed, affordable internet for families and businesses across Wisconsin.”

“Reliable broadband is essential for Iowa families, farmers, students, and small businesses,” said Senator Ernst. “I’m proud to partner with Senator Baldwin to cut unnecessary red tape through our bipartisan ACCESS Rural America Act so small, rural broadband providers can spend less time on paperwork and more time connecting rural America.”

The Access to Capital Creates Economic Strength and Supports (ACCESS) Rural America Act provides regulatory relief to rural telecommunications service providers by allowing them to submit streamlined financial reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). These small companies—many of which are the sole service providers in their region—could be put out of business by regulatory costs and unnecessary red tape. Specifically, this bipartisan legislation would create an exemption from certain SEC public registration and reporting requirements for rural telecommunications companies. This will save these small companies from costly and burdensome requirements that were never intended for them.

The bill is supported by NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association.

“Federal Securities and Exchange Commission registration and reporting requirements intended for larger, publicly-traded firms pose significant challenges for, and can impose substantial burdens on, smaller, locally-owned companies with limited resources. NTCA therefore greatly appreciates the leadership of Senators Baldwin and Ernst in introducing the ‘ACCESS Rural America Act,’ which will help relieve these burdens and enable small providers to focus more on their core mission of deploying and operating advanced broadband networks in rural areas,” said Mike Romano, CEO of NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association.

“The Wisconsin contingent of rural local community-based providers are elated to see the bipartisan bill and to eagerly work with Senator Baldwin and her office on the ACCESS Rural America Act. As rural providers, our customers and stakeholders will benefit from the long-awaited relief of the bill to free up local providers to better serve rural America with lesser cost and restraint via additional SEC regulations. It is a great time to unleash the collective rural based providers for the likes of BEAD related and other funding programs as we celebrate the 30th year of The Telecommunications Act of 1996 that helped boost markets and innovation as this may have a similar effect. Many of these rural local community-providers in Wisconsin have existed and served for over about half of our nation’s 250-year celebration and endeavor to continue to serve deftly with bills like ACCESS Rural America Act paving the way. Thank you, Senator Baldwin, for your dedication to rural Wisconsin constituents on behalf of our community-based providers across the state,” said John Klatt, President of Lakeland Communications.  

Full text of the bill is available here. A one-pager on the bill is available here.

An online version of this release is available here.