Expressing the Sense of the House About A National Strategy for the Internet of Things

Floor Speech

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Mr. WELCH. I appreciate the gentlewoman's leadership and, by the way, for her fierce leadership on consumer rights for the bill that just passed. I thank my colleagues, Mr. Burgess and Mr. Lance, whom I really appreciate, and, of course, the committee chair, Fred Upton, and Ranking Member Frank Pallone.

Mr. Speaker, you would be glad to know that we work pretty hard to be bipartisan and productive in the Energy and Commerce Committee. It takes a good deal of effort on both sides.

This legislation is really an acknowledgement about this new technology--the application of the Internet to activities that are cutting across the entire economy, everything from agriculture to medicine--and it is an acknowledgment by Congress that this is a private sector-led, entrepreneurial-led range of opportunities that has the potential to increase efficiency and productivity.

For instance, on farms you have GPS planting done by GPS-guided tractors. It results in much better planting with fewer seeds. It saves money and increases crop yields.

In medicine, as you know, telemedicine is being tremendously helpful to folks, like in Vermont, where we are a very rural State and it is tough for folks to make a 60-, 70-mile journey to the VA. With telemedicine, we are able to have the doctor in that person's local office. So it is a tremendous benefit to consumers there as well.

The other thing that is really important is that, for this to be deployed, it is not a matter of us trying to come up with a regulation. The innovations that are occurring are so rapid that it really would be impossible for anybody to write a regulation that would be anything but obstructive.

On the other hand, with Congress getting involved, there are going to be, as we go along, some issues of privacy and some issues of cybersecurity. When it comes to health records, all of us are going to be certain that those records are safe and private. When it comes to other things, like if somebody hacks into your Fitbit and finds out how many steps you took in a day, it is not such a big deal.

But this is where Congress is going to have to play a role, because industry is going to want to be certain that the rights of their consumers and the users of their products are being protected and their information is private and safe.

So we are acknowledging, as a Congress, Republicans and Democrats, that there is this new frontier with use of the Internet where entrepreneurs in the private sector are coming up with applications that can improve efficiency and productivity in almost every walk of life.

One of the ongoing challenges in our committee will be to make certain that the broadband infrastructure that is required in order to make this benefit available to folks in rural America is built out properly.

I have been working very closely with Bob Latta of Ohio, who has a big rural district, to try to make certain that we have a commitment in the technology space for broadband deployment all across America. It makes a huge difference in rural communities in our State of Vermont and Bob Latta's district in Ohio, where, if you have somebody who has got a good idea in a business, if they are in a small town with a population of a couple hundred people, as long as they have high-speed Internet, they are going to be able to take advantage of this.

So it is a pleasure, I think, for all of us to find something that we agree on that is substantive and is important. I thank all the folks who have had a hand in bringing us here to this moment where we are going to have an opportunity to vote on this resolution.

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