{"id":12507,"date":"2017-04-11T10:00:30","date_gmt":"2017-04-11T15:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/?p=12507"},"modified":"2017-04-11T01:47:58","modified_gmt":"2017-04-11T06:47:58","slug":"tennessee-broadband-accessibility-act-heads-to-governor-bill-haslam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/2017\/04\/11\/tennessee-broadband-accessibility-act-heads-to-governor-bill-haslam\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennessee Broadband Accessibility Act Heads to Governor Bill Haslam"},"content":{"rendered":"

Second piece of Haslam\u2019s NextTennessee legislative agenda approved by Tennessee General Assembly<\/h2>\n

\"TennesseeNashville, TN<\/strong> – Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam praised the passage of the Tennessee Broadband Accessibility Act, the governor\u2019s legislation to increase broadband access to Tennessee\u2019s unserved citizens.<\/p>\n

The House of Representatives passed HB 529\/SB 1215<\/a> 93-4, and it now heads to the governor\u2019s desk for signature. The Senate passed the legislation 31-0 on April 3rd.<\/p>\n

\"Tennessee<\/a>

Tennessee Broadband Accessibility Act passes House of Representatives.<\/p><\/div>\n

Tennessee currently ranks 29th in the U.S. for broadband access, with 34 percent of rural Tennessee residents lacking access at recognized minimum standards.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore than 800,000 Tennesseans don\u2019t have access to broadband, and one in three businesses identified it as essential to selecting their location. Spurring deployment in our rural, unserved areas will open them up to economic investment and growth,\u201d Haslam said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to thank the General Assembly for its overwhelming support, particularly Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris, Sen. Mike Bell (R-Riceville) and Rep. David Hawk (R-Greeneville) for carrying this legislation, which provides a reasonable, responsible path to improve broadband access through investment, deregulation and education,\u201d stated Haslam.<\/p>\n

The Tennessee Broadband Accessibility Act provides $45 million over three years in grants and tax credits for service providers to assist in making broadband available to unserved homes and businesses.<\/p>\n

In addition, the plan will permit Tennessee\u2019s private, nonprofit electric cooperatives to provide retail broadband service and make grant funding available to the state\u2019s local libraries to help residents improve their digital literacy skills and maximize the benefits of broadband.<\/p>\n

The legislation came after a year of study and stakeholder conversations by the administration. In July 2016, the Department of Economic and Community Development released a commissioned study assessing broadband in Tennessee and options for increasing access and utilization.<\/p>\n

In addition, a report issued by the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (TACIR), which completed extensive work on the subject of broadband accessibility and adoption, significantly contributed to Haslam\u2019s broadband proposal. <\/p>\n

The Tennessee Broadband Accessibility Act is part of Haslam\u2019s NextTennessee legislative plan aimed at building and sustaining economic growth and the state\u2019s competitiveness for the next generation of Tennesseans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Second piece of Haslam\u2019s NextTennessee legislative agenda approved by Tennessee General Assembly Nashville, TN – Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam praised the passage of the Tennessee Broadband Accessibility Act, the governor\u2019s legislation to increase broadband access to Tennessee\u2019s unserved citizens. The House of Representatives passed HB 529\/SB 1215 93-4, and it now heads to the governor\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[181],"tags":[3359,10444,10379,9488,11598,11597,6417,11601,284,11471,11602,11599,11600,261,9657,11470,1862,233,3350,457,2038],"class_list":["post-12507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","tag-bill-haslam","tag-broadband","tag-david-hawk","tag-greeneville-tn","tag-hb-529","tag-house-bill-529","tag-mark-norris","tag-mike-bell","tag-nashville-tn","tag-nexttennessee","tag-riceville-tn","tag-sb-1215","tag-senate-bill-1215","tag-tennessee","tag-tennessee-advisory-commission-on-intergovernmental-relations","tag-tennessee-broadband-accessibility-act","tag-tennessee-department-of-economic-and-community-development","tag-tennessee-general-assembly","tag-tennessee-governor","tag-tennessee-house-of-representatives","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12507"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12508,"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12507\/revisions\/12508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paristn.net\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}