South Dakota to receive $207 million from new Biden broadband plan
June 27, 2023
Ashley Murray
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Monday announced $42.45 billion to connect all Americans to high-speed broadband internet by the end of the decade, likening the ambitious goal to FDR’s New Deal-era rural electrification program that brought the then-modern technology to farms and rural areas across the United States.
Ashley Murray with South Dakota Searchlight reports the funding includes about $207 million for South Dakota.
The funds, which will be distributed as grants across U.S. states and territories, are allocated under the bipartisan infrastructure law, passed in 2021, but unveiled as the kick-off for the administration’s three-week tour highlighting infrastructure projects and private sector investment across the U.S.
“What we’re doing is, as I said, not unlike what Franklin Delano Roosevelt did when he brought electricity to nearly every American home and farm in our nation. Today (Vice President) Kamala (Harris) and I are making an equally historic investment to connect everyone in America to high speed internet, and affordable high speed internet, by 2030,” Biden said at the White House event in the East Room attended by guests and members of Congress.
“Because for today’s economy to work for everyone, internet access is just as important as electricity was, or water or other basic services,” Biden continued.
