Mon 14 Jan 2008
Did UTOPIA Dodge a Legislative Bullet?
Posted by Jesse under Legislation
Survey says: most likely. I've been watching the bills that have been filed by Rep. Frank and Sen. Stephenson, co-chairs of the Government Competition and Privatization Subcommittee, and it appears that no amendments to the Municipal Cable Television and Public Telecommunications Act have been given bill numbers. For all intents and purposes, it's dead, Jim.
This doesn't mean the fight is over. I'm no lawyer (I'm sure some of you are), but it seems that HB75, HB76 and SB45 could all be construed to bring cumbersome new requirements to municipal broadband projects. It's not entirely impossible that Qwest didn't see these as a bad-door way to further bind UTOPIA given Qwest's private meetings with most members of the committee. If you want to keep an eye on these, might I recommend the following handy RSS feed of the bill status?
January 25th, 2008 at 9:14 am
Thanks for posting the feed - I’ve been wondering where I can find consistent, accurate information about bills as they change, and this feed is perfect. Utopia’s information on their official site is so out-of-date and sparse, I’ve been dying to know what’s going on! Thanks for this site!