By Marianne Goodland | Colorado Politics
A panel of Colorado lawmakers on Wednesday rejected legislation that would have prohibited the Colorado Department of Transportation from charging annual fees for right-of-way access to deploy broadband networks in some of the most remote areas of rural Colorado.
The Polis administration, which is pushing for high-speed broadband access to 99% of Coloradans in three years, opposed the measure.
Introduced back in January, negotiations over Senate Bill 91 with the Colorado Department of Transportation — whose fees broadband providers claimed would make rural access unaffordable — delayed its first hearing until this week, just a few days before the end of the 2024 legislative session.