Pregnancy Centers

Floor Speech

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Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, I am here to speak about the extension of the Affordable Connectivity Program. COVID was brutal, but something good came out of it. And that was a recognition by the U.S. Congress-- Republicans and Democrats--that access to high-speed internet was absolutely essential all across America.

Before COVID, there were many of us who represented rural States-- Republicans and Democrats--who were making the case, when people were arguing for high-speed internet, that we had no-speed internet. And our concerns were really dismissed by many of our urban colleagues.

With the effect of COVID, it was apparent: You couldn't go to work if you didn't have internet. Your kids couldn't do homework without internet. You couldn't get a doctor's appointment unless you could do it online. And we had come to the conclusion as a Congress that high- speed internet was as essential to all of America today as electricity was in the 1930s.

And in the 1930s, when the debate was whether we build out electricity, there wasn't an economic argument that was made, although that was important; it was a commitment to the social cohesion of this country that we are all in it together. And whether you lived on a dirt road on a farm in Iowa or you lived in Manhattan on Fifth Avenue, you needed electricity. We made the same decision during COVID in the U.S. Congress, and we allocated billions of dollars to start building out high-speed internet across the entire country.

There is another matter, though, that is important if we are going have access to the internet. It is affordability. And the Affordable Connectivity Program was a lifeline for many low-income people in the State of Vermont and States, in counties, and in cities and towns all across this country.

If you were a Vermont family with 200 percent of poverty level income and you lived in a rural area, you made $15,000 a year and you had two kids, you could have internet going right by your house, but you had to make a really tough decision about whether you could afford it. The Affordable Connectivity Program helped that family with $30 toward the cost of the monthly bill for the high-speed internet. That doesn't sound like a lot. It is a lot to a family that is making $15,000 or $11,000 and has kids.

You know, it is tough to be poor. It is hard work to be poor. A lot of parents were making enormously difficult decisions about whether they could get access to internet, and they were able to make that choice because they cared about their kids and knew how important it was to their future. That was the only chance they had to look for jobs.

That program has been tremendously beneficial to folks you represent and I represent and to my colleagues who are my cosponsors on the extension bill, because this program will expire in months, and notices will be going out to families that that rebate they have depended upon is expiring.

But that is why the bipartisan nature of this reflects how this internet program is so essential to everybody who wants and needs to have access to internet--whether they are in a Republican district or not; whether they are Democratic or not.

I am proud to partner with J.D. Vance of Ohio; Jacky Rosen of Nevada; Kevin Cramer of South Dakota; and colleagues in the House, Yvette Clarke and Brian Fitzpatrick. All of us have constituents and all our constituents need this access to high-speed internet; so we cannot allow this program to expire.

In the State of Vermont, what we have done in order to do the hard work of taking the money that the Federal Government has provided to build out high-speed internet is we created community union districts where towns have gotten together and used funds to contract to build out that internet and where that community union district has a commitment, not so much to shareholders or investors, but to the people in the community. The goal in Vermont is to make sure that farmer at the last mile on the dirt road in our most remote town has access to internet.

It has really worked because there has been really serious community engagement. Our local community union districts have done an enormous amount to let folks know--those who are eligible, very low-income folks, hard-working folks--let them know about this program where that $30 is really going to make the difference on whether they can hook up or they can't.

We are really proud in Vermont, too, of one of our first internet providers that was local called ECFiber. They set up their own program even before the affordable connectivity program was established.

We have a decision we have to make as a Congress. Will we maintain this bipartisan commitment we have had to the citizens of this country to make certain that everybody, regardless of income, has the best possible opportunity to have access to that high-speed internet that is as essential to our well-being, our social connection, our sense of working together, as electricity was in the thirties?

It is very popular among Republicans, at least 62 percent; among Democrats, 90 percent. But most importantly, among rural Americans, 80 percent of rural Americans are in favor of this, and they know how vital this program is.

Mr. President, 25,000 Vermont families have benefited by it, and 22.5 million American families have benefited by it. Let us continue the program. Find the $7 billion that is necessary to maintain this, and make sure that the progress we made working together to build out high- speed internet to make it accessible to all our citizens continues.

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