Television for "Underserved" Areas. As a way of providing local television to 30 million households in areas of the country that cannot receive over-the-air signals or do not have local television through a satellite provider, this bill would create a new program that would provide $1.25 billion in loan guarantees to telecommunication providers. The loans would offer a competitive edge to satellite providers since cable companies cannot apply for the loans to expand their service. The loans would be administered by the Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service. Representative Christopher Cox (R-CA) in floor debate asserted that the Rural Utilities Service is "writing off billions of dollars in their existing loan portfolio left and right, at taxpayer expense, and … about 30 to 40 percent of the loans that are going to get made under this program are likely to be written off. So one can look at the cost of this program [and see that] right up front [it] is about $400 million."
The bill to fund rural television, H.R. 3615, passed the House on April 13, 2000 by a vote of 375-37 (Roll Call 128). We have assigned pluses to the nays.
