Hearing of the Communications and Technology Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee - Opening Statement of Rep. Greg Pence, Hearing on Broadband Equity: Addressing Disparities in Access and Affordability

Hearing

Today, U.S. Congressman Greg Pence (IN-06) participated in the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology hearing entitled, "Broadband Equity: Addressing Disparities in Access and Affordability." Congressman Pence highlighted the difficulties rural communities, like those in Indiana's Sixth Congressional District, face in receiving access to reliable broadband.

Rep. Pence's full remarks and questions are transcribed as prepared for delivery below.

Thank you Chair Doyle and Ranking Member Latta for holding this important hearing today and thank you to the witnesses for appearing before the committee.

For rural districts like the one I represent in southeast Indiana, the pandemic highlighted a clear division of opportunity that exists between rural communities and our urban counterparts.

There is no doubt that each of us here have heard stories of students sitting outside restaurants or gas stations to access Wi-Fi to participate in remote learning when their classrooms were closed.

Unfortunately, that was nothing new for Hoosiers living in rural communities.

In my own district, even before the pandemic hit, I knew students that would drive to the local McDonalds just to complete their homework because a broadband connection to the home was unavailable.

This situation was not because their family didn't want to adopt Internet service, but because there was no service provider in their area.

Just the other week I had an opportunity to sit down with both Hancock Regional Hospital and NineStar Connect, a rural broadband provider in Greenfield, Indiana.

Together, this team made extraordinary strides in making initial broadband connections to unserved areas to make sure the community had access to telehealth services.

As a result, physicians at Hancock Regional were able to develop a portable camera system for COVID-19 infected patients to connect with infectious disease experts located at neighboring hospital systems.

This application is just one example of how telehealth is the wave of the future for rural patients often living several hours away from health care services.

As telehealth became more critical during the pandemic, more and more physicians found that they could operate in the same fashion as in person visits for prescreening, post follow up, or rehabilitation services, to name a few.

However, these innovative technologies will only get us so far without reliable access to a broadband connection.

Rural Internet providers in my district like New Lisbon Broadband Company, Smithville Communications, and Decatur REMC are community institutions on the front lines of closing the digital divide.

Our efforts should be focused on leveraging their expertise with federal resources to more efficiently deploy infrastructure into remote and unserved populations.

Rural patients, seniors, Veterans, and other unserved vulnerable communities need to be our first priority when we talk about broadband equity.

Mr. Ford, I am concerned policies being pushed by the Majority will shift federal attention away from areas that are completely unserved and towards areas that are looking for faster speeds.

Before we talk about 100 symmetrical upload and download, let's figure out how to connect the remote parts of our country that have been living on the wrong side of the digital divide.

How could proposals like the Democrat's LIFT America Act and President Biden's infrastructure plans lead to unintended consequences and exacerbate the digital divide in rural America?

In contrast, how would focusing finite resources on unserved rural Americans help bridge broadband adoption gaps?

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