Encouraging State initiatives to improve broadband

The purposes of any grant under subsection (b) are— The Secretary of Commerce shall award grants, taking into account the results of the peer review process under subsection (d), to eligible entities for the development and implementation of statewide initiatives to identify and track the availability and adoption of broadband services within each State. Any grant under subsection (b) shall be awarded on a competitive basis. To be eligible to receive a grant under subsection (b), an eligible entity shall— The Secretary shall by regulation require appropriate technical and scientific peer review of applications made for grants under this section. The regulations required under paragraph (1) shall require that any technical and scientific peer review group— A grant awarded to an eligible entity under subsection (b) shall be used— to identify and track— to identify barriers to the adoption by individuals and businesses of broadband service and related information technology services, including whether or not— to create and facilitate in each county or designated region in a State a local technology planning team— which shall— to create within each State a geographic inventory map of broadband service, including the data rate benchmarks for broadband service utilized by the Commission to reflect different speed tiers, which shall— For each State, an eligible entity may not receive a new grant under this section to fund the activities described in subsection (d) within such State if such organization obtained prior grant awards under this section to fund the same activities in that State in each of the previous 4 consecutive years. The Secretary of Commerce shall— Subject to paragraph (2), the Commission shall provide eligible entities access, in electronic form, to aggregate data collected by the Commission based on the Form 477 submissions of broadband service providers. Notwithstanding any provision of Federal or State law to the contrary, an eligible entity shall treat any matter that is a trade secret, commercial or financial information, or privileged or confidential, as a record not subject to public disclosure except as otherwise mutually agreed to by the broadband service provider and the eligible entity. This paragraph applies only to information submitted by the Commission or a broadband provider to carry out the provisions of this chapter and shall not otherwise limit or affect the rules governing public disclosure of information collected by any Federal or State entity under any other Federal or State law or regulation. In this section: The term “Commission” means the Federal Communications Commission. The term “eligible entity” means— an entity that is either— Nothing in this section shall be construed as giving any public or private entity established or affected by this chapter any regulatory jurisdiction or oversight authority over providers of broadband services or information technology.