Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions
STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS -- (Senate - August 03, 2006)
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By Mr. DURBIN:
s. 3820. A bill to expand broadband access for rural Americans; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise to introduce a bill entitled Broadband for Rural America Act of 2006.
There is no question that broadband is an essential component of our lives, both at work and at home. Broadband access is becoming a vital service, much like water, sewer, gas, and electricity are essential resources for our daily living. Our homes and businesses need affordable and easy access to an always-on, high speed and high capacity Internet connection, much like our homes and businesses need the traditional utility services.
Additionally, people who work outside the confines of an office building need broadband access on the go. Often, it is not enough to have only a cell phone to remain in touch with your boss, coworker, client, or supplier. In today's global economy, we need easy methods to transfer a vast quantity of data, fast and reliably, even if we are not near a landline phone, fax, or computer terminal.
Yet for so many Americans today, broadband access is still a foreign concept. The digital divide remains a reality. Rural broadband deployment continues to lag behind urban deployment, and the differential continues to grow, even as broadband usage has grown significantly in our Nation.
When I travel to small or rural towns in downstate Illinois and elsewhere, I meet people who tell me that they cannot wait to have broadband, but that there is no service available where they live. I am certain that all of my colleagues in the Senate can identify with situations like this, where they have met constituents who are eager to jump onto the Information Superhighway, yet there is no on-ramp.
According to a 2004 report issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce, only about 25 percent of rural households that use the Internet have broadband access, compared to over 40 percent of the same households in urban areas. Similarly, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's 2005 report found that farm households have home access to broadband at almost half the level of all U.S. households nationwide.
The Pew Internet and American Life Project found similar results. In its 2006 report, Pew found that only 18 percent of rural adults reported a home broadband connection in the year 2005, compared to 31 percent of urban adults.
All these different studies issued by various authorities point to a consistent conclusion: Americans living in urban areas are almost twice as likely to have home broadband access as do their rural counterparts.
Contrary to popular belief, however, rural households use computers and information technology in ways that are very similar to their urban counterparts. Thus, it appears that the main obstacle to improving rural broadband adoption is not differences in the users themselves, but in the availability and price of broadband service.
It is clear that citizens in small towns and rural areas simply do not have the same options that people in cities and urban areas do. And, in some of the rural areas where broadband is available, these customers often pay more for inferior quality than customers in the more populated areas.
As our rural residents are falling behind city dwellers, so too, is our Nation falling behind the rest of the developed world.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that, in 2004, America ranked 12th among developed nations in broadband access per 100 inhabitants. However, the same study had found that in 2001, we ranked 4th in the developed world. So, this means that in just 3 short years, we lost our competitive edge to 8 countries.
Broadband is critical to community and economic development, as it encourages investment, creates jobs, improves productivity, fosters innovation, and increases consumer benefits in every corner of our Nation.
A 2003 study by Criterion Economics found that adoption of current generation broadband would increase the gross domestic product by $179.7 billion, while sustaining an additional 61,000 jobs per year over the next 19 years. The study also projected 1.2 million jobs could be created if next generation broadband technology were rapidly deployed.
In early 2004, President Bush called for universal and affordable access to broadband by the year 2007, because it will enhance our Nation's economic competitiveness and help improve education and health care for all Americans. Kevin Martin, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has said he is committed to expanding the number of broadband users in our country so that we can improve our rank in the world.
I agree with both President Bush and Chairman Martin. The administration, the FCC, Congress, and the States can all contribute to closing the digital divide, ensuring that rural Americans are not left behind in the 21st century's digital economy.
We need to work together to address this critical shortfall in our Nation's infrastructure. We need a seamless national network of broadband providers that will serve everyone in America.
Whether it is through telephone wire, cable, fiber, satellite, wireless, powerline, or any other medium, we need every existing and future broadband service provider to step up to the national challenge.
That is why I am introducing a bill that will encourage rapid deployment of high quality and affordable high speed broadband service, especially in the rural areas that desperately need this technology.
The Broadband for Rural America Act of 2006 includes five major provisions. Each provision is designed to eliminate obstacles that hinder broadband deployment in rural America today.
First, my bill creates a new Federal program specifically targeted to assist people who are doing the necessary work at the earliest stages to bring broadband to their communities.
These are future customers who are weary of waiting for telecommunications and cable companies to eventually reach their corners of the State. These are individuals, businesses, and co-ops who want to create a demand pool to entice new or existing carriers to quickly expand broadband service to areas where they work and live.
We have several groups like this in my home State of Illinois. They cannot wait any longer, so they have taken the initiative to work for access to affordable high quality broadband service.
Many of these groups and individuals work in collaboration with like-minded community leaders, businesspeople, engineers, and other experts to learn all they can about their region. They are the local experts on the unique geographic, economic, and lifestyle needs of their market. They can conduct the mapping and surveying work, to find out where there are services and gaps in their neighborhoods, and what technology is best suited to serve their region.
And, if they discover that no existing provider wants to expand service to where they are, based on the company's internal cost-benefit analysis, these groups are willing to start a communications service of their own, using technology they can afford, to provide broadband for and by themselves. These good people do not want to be left out of the new economy. They need our help.
Yet, currently, there is no readily accessible source of funding from the Federal Government for these groups that are undertaking the critical early stage groundwork. If they were already communications service providers, they could look for funding through other programs, including the USDA's Rural Utilities Service Program, the universal service fund, or the Small Business Administration. They could also go to the financial markets to seek venture capital and operating funds from established private sector investors.
But as startup groups trying hard to serve their local or rural community's needs, they have few places to turn to for financial assistance.
My bill creates a new Office of Broadband Access within the FCC that would administer a trust fund from which Federal grants can be issued to these startup groups. Under my bill, eligible entities include nonprofits, academic institutions, local governments, and commercial companies that will work to identify broadband access needs in unserved areas of the country.
The types of projects to be funded through this new program will include feasibility studies, mapping, economic analysis, and other activities undertaken to determine the reasons for the current lack of service and the scale, scope, and type of broadband services most suitable for the particular unserved area.
To further assist with these startup projects, my bill requires the FCC to collect more useful information from current broadband service providers to ascertain where and how broadband service is available, and to report to Congress on the areas that are unserved.
This reporting requirement is a bipartisan idea that Senator Bill Nelson and Senator Jim DeMint recently presented before the Senate Commerce Committee. I am happy to work with them to further encourage the FCC to collect more useful data on the state of broadband deployment.
Finally, the revenues to fund this trust fund will be derived from direct appropriations of $10 million per year for 5 years, plus 1 percent of proceeds from all auction sales of spectrum conducted by the FCC, which are to be set aside for this unique purpose. I believe this should generate enough revenues to sustain this trust fund for the next 5 years, which is the critical time for Federal assistance.
When Congress created the Rural Utilities Service Broadband Loan and Loan Guarantee Program in the 2002 farm bill, we charged the U.S. Department of Agriculture with providing much needed funds to bring broadband to rural America. The bill authorized $100 million for fiscal years 2002 to 2007 to provide below market-rate loans and loan guarantees for the construction and improvement of facilities and equipment to provide broadband service.
While this loan program has had some successes over the past 4 years, it has also faced serious internal and external criticism.
For example, in September 2005, USDA's inspector general issued an internal audit report pointing out major problems with the program. Among other concerns, the report alleges that, in decisions that were inconsistent with provisions of authorizing statute, USDA has funded entities in suburban--not rural--areas, and in places that are already receiving broadband service.
The internal report also accuses the agency of mismanaging the program, leading to irregularities and even fraud in the decisionmaking and approval processes for applications.
To add more controversy to this program, in May of this year, USDA was sued by the cable industry for allegedly failing to follow the statutory mandates that created the broadband loan program.
Striking a tone similar to the inspector general's internal audit report, the lawsuit alleges among other issues that USDA has diverted Federal funds to suburban areas and has failed to ensure that unserved communities receive first priority.
I support the USDA's rural broadband loan program, and I want to see the program grow and continue to fund worthy projects. But I also believe that these recent internal and external developments merit serious consideration. So, in the spirit of working with the USDA to reform the problematic areas, my bill reforms and extends the life of the loan program for another 5 years, to expire in 2012, not 2007.
The bill goes to the heart of the concerns raised by the critics of the program. It amends the definition of an eligible rural community to exclude any area located within 10 miles of any city with a population of over 25,000. This should prevent the program from funding urban or suburban areas that may be technically considered rural under some definitions, but are in reality, located adjacent to areas that already receive broadband service.
Additionally, my bill prevents any rural area from being funded where a majority of its residential customers already have access to broadband service offered at a price per megabit of speed comparable to the nearest urban area. Under this definition, any area where rural residents are already enjoying affordable high speed broadband service should not be allowed to receive additional Federal funds.
These funds should be saved for the truly needy communities.
My bill also provides language to authorize in statute a rural broadband grant program to be administered by the USDA, together with its rural broadband loan and loan guarantee program.
While the USDA has created its own grant programs to fund certain broadband providers, a formal grant program was never authorized by Congress. By authorizing it, Congress will have more oversight and impose accountability, while keeping the grant program funded at an operational level for many years to come.
Finally, although USDA's inspector general has recommended several reform measures, I believe we should force the agency to implement these changes in order to improve the loan and grant programs. Therefore, my bill requires the USDA to undertake a comprehensive and transparent rulemaking process in response to the recent internal audit.
The FCC has been looking to make more spectrum available for innovative unlicensed wireless uses, including wireless broadband. This new ``unlicensed'' spectrum holds tremendous potential for allowing wireless broadband to be deployed in rural areas. This would be especially helpful in large rural geographic regions where it would be cost prohibitive to build out a broadband infrastructure with wires, cable, or fiber.
Some of this spectrum would come from space made newly available when traditional analog over-the-air TV broadcasters transition to digital transmission by 2009. Other spectrum may be found in narrow gaps between currently existing licensed users that could be utilized by smaller and localized products, such as garage openers, cordless phones, wireless baby monitors, and of course, broadband.
While I support making more spectrum available to new users, I believe we need to do so with clear safeguards in place so that new wireless users will not cause undue interference problems with existing broadcasters, public safety officials, and others that use wireless products such as microphones.
My bill requires the FCC to complete a rulemaking process to make new spectrum available for wireless broadband services in rural areas as soon as practicable. The bill specifically requires the FCC to ensure that new unlicensed wireless users provide engineering testing results to prevent harmful interference problems.
The FCC also has been planning an auction sale of spectrum in the 700 MHz band, which is ideal for wireless broadband use. I support this auction, and I encourage the FCC to conduct it as soon as possible, so that new service providers can enter the wireless broadband market to fill in the gaps in service that wireline providers cannot or will not meet.
However, we have learned from previous FCC auctions that the true value of spectrum depends on who uses it and for what purposes. We also have learned that different carriers will bid in different auctions, depending on the size of the blocks of airwaves available for purchase. Large national wireless carriers will choose to bid on large geographic markets, while smaller or local carriers will bid on smaller market sizes.
For the 700 MHz band, I agree with a bipartisan idea that Senator Olympia Snowe and Senator Byron Dorgan proposed in the Senate Commerce Committee. In our view, it makes the most sense to configure the plan for this band to designate up to 12 MHz of paired recovered analog spectrum to be auctioned for smaller geographic licenses.
This will maximize the participation of small, regional, and rural service providers, because these are the most likely entities to provide wireless broadband service in rural areas.
My bill therefore requires the FCC to evaluate its auction plans and to divide some of the frequency allocations into smaller area licenses so that regional and rural wireless companies can compete in the bidding process.
I look forward to working with Senators SNOWE and DORGAN to ensure that the FCC maximizes the value of these public airwaves for the benefit of all Americans, especially those living in rural areas.
As with many States, my State of Illinois has struggled over the past few years with ways to bring universal and affordable broadband to every corner of our State. Many leaders in our State and local governments have studied various proposals, and have sought the guidance of experts in the private sector.
Additionally, telecommunications and cable companies that provide the vast majority of broadband service in the nation today are generally regulated at the state and local levels. Therefore, in our effort to develop a national broadband policy, I think it makes sense for Congress to learn from the varied experiences gained in many states that have tried innovative solutions to encourage or mandate broadband services in their regions.
My bill establishes a task force consisting of experts in Federal, State, and local governments, trade associations, public interest organizations, academic institutions, and other relevant areas, to study best practices for rapid deployment of broadband services in States, particularly those with large unserved rural areas.
The bill requires the task force, within 6 months, to provide to Congress and to each governor a report detailing a comprehensive list of specific measures adopted by State or local governments that have helped provide incentives for
communications carriers to deploy broadband services in areas that lacked such services.
For too long, we have been talking about the need to bring universal and affordable broadband to every corner of our Nation. Yet progress has been too slow. It is time to reengage our national, state, and local policy leaders to focus our attention, and work with the private sector toward achieving this goal.
I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting Broadband for Rural America Act of 2006.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
S. 3820
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