House Affirms COVID-19 Bill With E-rate, CPB Money

Biden told reporters he plans to precede HR-1319's signing with a Thursday night speech on “the next phase of the COVID response and explain what we will do as a government” to aid the post-pandemic economic recovery. Lobbyists expect Biden to roll out his asks for an upcoming infrastructure legislative push, which is expected to include substantial broadband funding (see 2101150001).

The House vote on HR-1319 split along party lines, as expected. One Democrat -- Jared Golden of Maine -- voted no with the unified GOP caucus. Floor debate was equally divided. “This legislation is one of the most transformative and historic bills any of us will ever have an opportunity to support,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and other Republicans continued to criticize HR-1319 before voting against it. The bill is “a laundry list of left-wing priorities that predate the pandemic,” McCarthy said.

The E-rate money “is welcome news” because “the nation’s Homework Gap has never been more evident than during this pandemic with the move to remote learning,” said acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. The Emergency Connectivity Fund that the measure would create “can be used to pay for eligible equipment and services for schools and libraries to provide to students who need them.”

An “estimated 12 million students remain locked out of the virtual classroom,” said Democratic Commissioner Geoffrey Starks. “This relief package’s $7 billion investment in emergency connectivity will help ensure that all students can continue learning and growing.” House Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J., and several groups also praised House concurrence on HR-1319. They include the Information Technology Industry Council, NAB, the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition and the Software and Information Industry Association.

Lawmakers elsewhere geared up Wednesday for the infrastructure legislative push. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Tom Carper, D-Del., told reporters he and others are “working ... across the aisle” on coming infrastructure legislation amid centrist Democrats’ desire for a bipartisan deal. He aims to have EPW advance the measure before Memorial Day, setting up a timeline for Senate passage and Biden’s signoff by the end of September.

House Rural Broadband Caucus co-Chairman Peter Welch, D-Vt., floated a proposal Tuesday for $79.5 billion to expand broadband (HR-1672). About 75% of the money would go to projects in rural areas capable of 100 Mbps download/upload. The other 25% would go to state governments to finance local broadband buildout programs. The measure would allocate $500 million to NTIA’s Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program, $100 million for broadband in U.S. territories and $100 million for small states. Welch’s office said he “consulted closely” with Pallone and Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., in writing the measure. Clyburn is expected to refile his own $100 billion broadband spending proposal soon (see 2102100061).

Graves told Senate Commerce members Wednesday “we should do everything in our power to make certain that broadband is expanded into every community in the country,” including pushing to “get the NTIA grants expedited” and “increasing the amount of broadband access in rural” areas. The pandemic made clear that the “need for access to affordable high-speed broadband is critical to every community,” Graves said. He has heard from “parents struggling to educate their kids during the pandemic because they lack broadband access.”

“If we don’t prioritize the areas that are either underserved or not served at all, I don’t think we’re going to have the economy that’s going to work for all parts of this country” post-pandemic, said Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont. Other senators at the hearing emphasized the need for Commerce Department involvement in expanding broadband access. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., urged Graves to emphasize funding broadband technologies that have been “proven” to work over those still in “beta testing.”

Graves said he believes Commerce can prevent a return to what Senate Communications Subcommittee ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., referred to as the “interagency disputes” over spectrum management that happened repeatedly during Donald Trump’s administration. Graves wants to ensure the FCC and all other agencies affected by a particular spectrum issue are “brought to the table” and are “transparent about the way they are using their data.” Thune and other lawmakers previously pressed Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo about her spectrum management plans (see 2101260063). Thune believed the federal government can be “way more efficient” with its spectrum use, noting “there’s a lot of spectrum out there that I think can be effectively deployed for commercial use” without jeopardizing U.S. national security or first responders.

Graves, like Raimondo, stopped short of committing to keeping Huawei or other Chinese firms on the Bureau of Industry and Security’s entity list in response to a query from Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. There’s “no reason to believe” Huawei or any other Chinese firm should be removed from the entity list, he said. Graves earlier told Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., that the federal government needs to “take a very firm stance” against Chinese encroachment on tech issues.