CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Last week, U.S. Senators Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Chair of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, introduced the Grant to Rapidly Invest and Deploy Broadband, or GRID Broadband Act, a pioneering proposal that would provide a robust new federal cost-share to spur investment in a nationwide middle mile backbone along the nation’s existing electricity grid.

The goal of this bipartisan initiative is to help provide affordable high-speed Internet options to the 120 million American households that lack connectivity and enhance the resiliency, diversity, and security of America’s electrical grid. This investment will create thousands of skilled jobs, while enhancing the capacity and resilience of our critical networks, reducing costs to providers and consumers, and setting the stage for sustained long-term economic growth.

“In order to accomplish our goal of bringing reliable, high-speed internet access to every West Virginia community, we need to continue bringing solutions to the table,” Senator Capito said. “The GRID Broadband Act would utilize our nation’s electric grid system to help build out and deploy broadband, especially in some of the most rural areas of West Virginia with little to no service. Closing the digital divide is a bipartisan priority, and I’m proud to introduce this legislation with Senator Cantwell.”

“Building out fiber along our nation’s existing grid will provide the communications capacity needed to modernize our energy system, make our grid more cyber secure, and bring affordable high-speed internet to tens of millions of hard-to-reach households,” Senator Cantwell said. “It’s a triple win solution for consumers because it leverages existing rights-of-way and private sector ingenuity and investment to deliver cleaner electricity, stronger cybersecurity, and more accessible broadband services. Almost a century ago, the Rural Electrification Act helped bring power and productivity to every American home and business, now we can piggyback on that success by using the same network to also deliver the data and information America needs to prosper in this century.”

Accordingly, the GRID Broadband Act seeks to leverage these investments to create a triple win that will: 

1. Enable more diverse and distributed energy sources to connect to the grid,

2. Facilitate more cyber-secure communications capacity, and

3. Provide ubiquitous middle-mile capacity to drive down broadband costs nationwide and provide new options for underserved communities.

Under the GRID Broadband Act, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is charged with issuing competitive cost-shared federal grants to encourage the rapid development of a secure, nationwide broadband backbone on existing electric grid infrastructure. Recipients of GRID Broadband awards must use funding to improve cybersecurity and smart grid technology on their electrical grid infrastructure, as well as increase middle-mile broadband capacity. Grant recipients must cover at least half of project costs, except for a qualifying not-for profit utility or Native entity that is providing access to underserved or unserved communities.

View the GRID Broadband Act bill text HERE.

# # #