Obama nominates FCC commissioner to head USDA's Rural Utilities Service, a broadband lender

President Obama announced late today that he will nominate Jonathan S. Adelstein, a pro-consumer member of the Federal Communications Commission, to head the Rural Utilities Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. RUS is the successor to the Rural Electrification Administration and will distribute $2.5 billion in economic-stimulus funds for broadband Internet service in rural areas.

Adelstein recently called broadband "the skeleton key" to economic opportunity, but his appointment raises questions about how RUS will spend stimulus money on broadband, Obama's main campaign promise to rural America. He is reportedly skeptical of spending money in areas that have relatively low demand for the service, which includes many rural areas. Analyst Tom Nolle of CIMI Corp. told Paula Bernier of xchange in January that Adelstein is among officials who have been "kind of of the view that the objective of the broadband stimulus should be to create parity in broadband between the U.S. and other market areas. And that parity is not created by attempting to touch underserved areas. There are, in fact, pretty significant data points that suggest that a lot of the so-called underserved areas are underserved because they don’t want to be served. So it’s not clear how much additional, incremental broadband penetration we would achieve even with a program that aggressively went after everybody that didn’t have [broadband] now." (Read more)

Adelstein's official FCC biography says he is "a particularly strong advocate for media diversity and localism, and works diligently to encourage increased voices on the airwaves to support a well-informed citizenry. He has worked to promote access to telecommunications and media outlets by minorities, rural and low-income consumers, people with disabilities, and non-English speakers." Adelstein, a native of Rapid City, S.D., was a Senate staffer for 15 years, the last seven as a senior legislative aide to then-Democratic Leader Tom Daschle. He joined the FCC in 2002.