Hearing of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce - Digital Future of the Unites States, Part VI: The Future of Telecommunications Competition
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REP. RICK BOUCHER (D-VA): Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and I particularly want to express my appreciation to you for making a part of today's hearing the subject of state barriers to the provision of broadband and other commercial telecom services by municipalities.
A century ago, as the electricity industry was emerging, it was deemed to be in the public interest to permit local governments to offer the new electricity services to their residents in places where the investor-owned utilities had declined to make investments.
Broadband today, I would argue, is as essential to the economic future of communities as the new electricity services were to the people of America 100 years ago.
And where broadband is either not available or is available only at unaffordable prices, municipalities clearly have a role to play in filling the gap. We stand, as the chairman pointed out in his opening statement, 15th in the world in the deployment of broadband, and for the sake of our national economy, we have got to do a lot better.
Freeing local governments to offer the service is one way in which we clearly can do better.
Today 14 states bar in whole or in part the provision of telecommunications services in commercial form by local governments. The ranking member, Mr. Upton, and I have introduced the Community Broadband Act of 2007, which would bar states from enacting laws that prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting the offering of these services by their localities.
This measure is very similar to a provision in the telecommunications legislation that was approved in this committee and passed by the full House during the course of the last Congress.
And my recollection is that when that measure was a part of the base bill that was approved in this committee, there were no amendments offered to remove it. In fact, it was not even the subject of debate or further discussion beyond the mere description of its presence in the bill. So that provision was not controversial last year and I think this year it clearly deserves to be enacted on a free-standing basis.
Across the nation there are many examples of municipal networks that have stimulated economic growth, and I would note the presence on our panel today of Mr. Wes Rosenbalm, who is the chief executive officer of Bristol Virginia Utilities. That is a municipal broadband provider with a great story to tell about how that investment has stimulated the arrival of a very large number of technology-based jobs, and we welcome Mr. Rosenbalm and look forward to his presentation of that testimony.
The Community Broadband Act would open the door for additional communities to enjoy that progress.
I appreciate the subcommittee's focus on this need and I very much look forward to the testimony of our witnesses. And that said, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
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