LINCOLN- On Thursday, the Nebraska Legislature began debate on LB683, introduced by the Transportation and Telecommunications Committee, which would remove the Public Service Commission's authority to award $400 million for broadband expansion in underserved areas and instead give that power to a new gubernatorial appointee leading the state broadband office.

The new state office was created following an executive order in January, and Gov. Jim Pillen said that "affordable, accessible, dependable and high-speed broadband is essential" for the education of Nebraska youth. Several senators from both sides of the aisle, including Sens. Steve Erdman, Steve Halloran, Megan Hunt, and Machaela Cavanaugh, questioned the intent of the bill, and asked why the state would create a new state office rather than add staff to the public service commission.

"This might be a better alternative," Halloran told his colleagues, "The goal would be the same. The results would be the same. But it would be under the Public Service Commission." If passed, the bill would leave the public service commission in control of several smaller grant programs aimed at broadband expansion. Other lawmakers, including Sens. George Dungan and John Cavanaugh, who are both attorneys, worried that a provision in the State Constitution giving authority over "common carriers" to the commission might make LB683 unconstitutional.

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