Washington, DC - Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (NY) today announced that the amendment she co-sponsored with Senator Conrad Burns (MT) and Senator Jay Rockefeller (WV) to provide incentives to accelerate the deployment of broadband high-speed Internet access across the country passed in the Senate late last night. The "broadband expensing" amendment was included in the Senate's tax package. The amendment would create a financial incentive to encourage broadband providers to extend their networks into rural communities and other underserved areas.

"I am very pleased that this amendment to encourage broadband deployment to Upstate New York and rural and underserved areas throughout the country passed the Senate last night," Senator Clinton said. "In our modern world, communication is the key to progress and economic revitalization. High speed Internet access is becoming as vital to businesses struggling to compete in the 21st century marketplace as phone service was in the early 20th century. I will be fighting every step of the way to make sure that Upstate New Yorkers are not left out of this technological revolution. Broadband is like a field of high tech dreams for businesses: if you build it, they will grow."

Senator Clinton's amendment to the tax bill aims to stimulate broadband infrastructure deployment and demand for broadband services by:

Providing 50% expensing for investments in rural and underserved areas of "current generation" broadband technologies, which are defined as those delivering at least 1 megabit per second of information downstream to the subscriber, and at least 128 kilobits per second upstream from the subscriber.

Providing 100% expensing for investments in "next generation" broadband technologies, which are defined as those delivering at least 22 megabits per second of information downstream to the subscriber, and at least 5 megabits per second upstream from the subscriber. The incentives are provided for investment in 2004 to encourage immediate investment to help stimulate the economy. In January of this year, Senator Clinton joined with Senator Burns and Senator Max S. Baucus (D-MT) as a lead sponsor of the Broadband Expensing Act of 2003. At the time, Senator Clinton said that she hoped to include the Broadband Expensing Act of 2003 as part of Congress' overall economic stimulus package.

Senator Clinton has also been active in the promotion of broadband services throughout New York State. In November 2002 she hosted the New Technologies for New York Forum 2002 - the first telecom summit of its kind in the state, aimed at bringing investment, jobs and services to Upstate New York.

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