MO Legislature Pushed To Expand Rural Broadband

The Missouri Farm Bureau is asking the legislature to continue to fund rural broadband in the state. Eric Bohl  says the state’s broadband grant program should be made permanent.

“Hopefully we’ll also be able to remove a sunset that was in that initial bill that set up the office so that that office can move forward indefinitely because it’s going to be something that we need for the indefinite future.”

Unless the legislature takes action, the newly-created program expires in August 2021. Bohl says Missouri is one of the worst states in rural broadband reach…

“There are over a million people in rural Missouri that do not have broadband internet access. And there’s only two other states that have more than a million people and those are California and Texas.”

In 2018, state lawmakers passed legislation to create the program and last year they funded the effort with $5 million.