Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, has introduced the “Rebuild America Act of 2015,” a $1 trillion infrastructure-funding bill that includes provisions that make $5 billion available for the deployment of high-speed broadband networks. The bill calls for the appropriation of $2.5 billion in each fiscal year 2015 through 2019 for both the Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP) and the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP). BIP and BTOP were the programs used by the Rural Utilities Service and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, respectively, to distribute funding for broadband that was appropriated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The legislation is cosponsored by Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), the Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member.
