Stop Subsidizing Telecom Corporations with Public Funds

I urge you to vote against SB1065 (Brown) and its amendments. This bill requires Missouri's Department of Transportation to reimburse private telecommunications companies, broadband providers, video service providers, and cable operators for labor costs when their infrastructure must be relocated for road projects. While this is framed as a practical fix for infrastructure coordination, it is a direct transfer of public dollars to private corporations and working Missourians deserve to know who this bill actually serves. Under the amended version of this bill, the reimbursement cap rises from $15 million to $25 million per year across all three initial fiscal years, totaling up to $75 million in public funds flowing to largely unregulated, investor-owned private companies. These are not small community co-ops struggling to survive. These are industries that have spent decades lobbying against consumer protections, opposing net neutrality, and fighting regulations that would make broadband affordable and accessible to low-income families across this state. The bill also quietly opens highway rights-of-way to high-voltage electric transmission facilities, including merchant transmission line developers (private profit-seeking entities) with the expectation that rules accommodating them will be developed later. This is policymaking designed to benefit private investors, written with urgency while public broadband and rural utility access remain underfunded and deprioritized. Proponents will argue this is about removing barriers to road construction. But if these companies have benefited from public right-of-way access for years (often at little to no cost) asking taxpayers to also cover their relocation expenses is a subsidy by another name. When Missouri schools are underfunded, when Medicaid expansion remains fragile, and when rural communities still lack reliable internet, the state's priority should not be reimbursing profitable telecom corporations for the ordinary costs of doing business in public spaces. Public infrastructure dollars should serve the public. This bill serves shareholders. I urge a no vote.