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Floor Speech
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Ms. CANTWELL. Madam President, I thank the majority leader for moving forward on the Rosenworcel nomination and encourage my colleagues to vote yes.
I was mentioning the issues of disparity across our country for those who don't have access to broadband. The Makah Tribe, located on the northwest point of the Olympic Peninsula, 90 percent of those households don't have broadband.
I know Ms. Rosenworcel committed to both Senator Wicker and myself she would work with us on the issue of broadband mapping. I know in one county in Mississippi, the home of my colleague, that it is estimated the FCC broadband mapping overestimates internet coverage by a whopping 80 percent. This is unacceptable. We need accurate mapping, and we need the broadband funding to move forward.
I know the Biden administration understands the importance of affordability of broadband. I know they want to deploy broadband and make it more affordable, and we want to work with them to make that happen.
Chairwoman Rosenworcel also looked at the issue of healthcare and the fact that the internet is now access to doctors, to medical information, to monitoring patients, to delivering healthcare, and keeping the lights on. This is also why I think her nomination is so important.
She took time to firsthand visit telehealth in Washington--the State of Washington--and Seattle and saw how we were pushing forward. Yet the FCC is going to do more in this particular area.
Her leadership, I believe, will help ensure that our spectrum policies continue to spur innovation and economic prosperity. I know that she will be able to look forward to these developing technologies and how best to include innovation, including the next 5G wireless technology communications.
All of this, I believe, means that we in the United States have a desire to keep pushing the envelope and to have an FCC that understands how to resolve these problems.
I ask my colleague to support her nomination and to move forward on these important policies so we all can work on them together.
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