Expediting Federal Broadband Deployment Reviews Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3293, the Expediting Federal Broadband Deployment Reviews Act which was introduced by Representatives Duncan and Craig.

As this year comes to a close and with an eye towards 2025, I am excited to see real progress in the year ahead on many of the broadband deployment efforts, including in the bipartisan infrastructure law.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the Federal Communications Commission laid so much important groundwork over the past 2 years, notably creating accurate and reliable broadband availability maps, so that infrastructure dollars will go to communities where they truly are needed.

In the coming year, many projects funded under the $42 billion BEAD program will begin to break ground and connect for the first time unserved and underserved communities to high-speed internet.

Communication providers are zeroing in on project areas and preparing plans at the most granular level. In the course of this work, providers will find that in many cases the most direct route to lay broadband infrastructure requires traversing lands owned and managed by the Federal Government.

In central Florida, we have a lot of Federal lands around Cape Canaveral and Avon Park Air Force Range. We have a lot of national parks in and around our area as well, so we know this well.

Earlier this Congress, the Energy and Commerce Committee heard about delays and inefficiencies in the handling of permit applications that are pending at various agencies overseeing Federal lands.

While environmental and historic preservation protections will always be of the utmost importance to me, we should strive to ensure our agencies operate as efficiently as possible to dispense with applications to deploy communications infrastructure where no additional environmental or historic preservation due diligence is required.

This bill calls on the administrator of the NTIA to establish an interagency strike force that will improve collaboration between NTIA and the agencies and departments responsible for reviewing and improving communications use authorization applications.

This will help NTIA help bring relevant parties together to identify the obstacles and inefficiencies that have slowed progress in the past and collaborate on solutions to address these barriers, ultimately expediting the deployment of broadband infrastructure to the rural and remote areas most in need.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the leadership of Representatives Duncan and Craig on this important legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. SOTO. Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close.

First, I thank Representative Duncan for his leadership on the committee, especially in areas of energy. We worked on a lot of issues relating to nuclear energy, which is going to be a key part of the clean energy future that we all care deeply about, so I wish him well in his future endeavors.

Mr. Speaker, it is simple. Once the environmental and historic preservation reviews are done, or where they are not required, we have to get these broadband dollars out the door.

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