Broadband Access

Today, the FCC majority voted to approve an Order on Remand responding to questions raised by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on the agency’s 2017 net neutrality repeal. The Court’s remand highlights the many serious questions the FCC ignored in 2017 when repealing net neutrality including the impact to public safety, broadband competition, and affordable broadband for low-income consumers. The FCC’s Order on Remand concludes that the agency’s deregulation of broadband outweighs any harms to public safety, competition, and affordable broadband.

The House is poised to pass a modified COVID-19 relief package to provide assistance to Americans whose lives have been upended by the pandemic, and to bolster pillars of our democracy strained under the national health crisis. The Senate must act after refusing to move on a more robust relief package passed by the House in May. It is past time for Senate Republicans to move to help the American people instead of focusing on trying to ram through the confirmation of another Supreme Court Justice while ignoring the plight of their constituents.

Americans expect and deserve elected representatives who put the interests of their constituents and the health of our democracy first – especially when both are threatened by a pandemic. But instead, the Senate Republicans’ long-overdue COVID-19 relief package undermines the accuracy of the 2020 census, gives corporations the immunity they’ve lobbied for, slashes weekly jobless aid, and short-changes our democracy all in one fell swoop. Senate foot-dragging on this relief package already allowed the eviction moratorium in the CARES Act to expire – likely adding disenfranchisement to the host of life-altering problems faced by thousands of newly-homeless Americans.

Today, House Majority Whip Clyburn and the House Rural Broadband Task Force along with leadership in the House Energy and Commerce Committee introduced the “Accessible, Affordable, Internet for All Act.” The comprehensive legislation provides $80 billion of funding for broadband deployment while enabling affordable options for broadband adoption, creating digital equity programs, enhancing data collection regarding the price and quality of broadband networks, and protecting community broadband.

The HEROES Act takes critical steps to help secure essential pillars of our democracy undermined by the COVID-19 pandemic while providing a huge boost to address the public health and economic crises. The bill provides important bulwarks to help safeguard our elections, the Census, the U.S. Postal Service, and includes enhanced oversight requirements for the stimulus package that were sorely lacking in CARES Act passed by Congress in late March.

Today, Common Cause called on Congress to prioritize funding for key elements of our democracy in the next COVID-19 emergency supplemental appropriations bill (“CARES 2.0”). The letter urges every Member of Congress to designate sufficient funding in the stimulus package to secure essential pillars of our democracy threatened by the pandemic and to ensure proper safeguards are put into place to oversee government disbursement of trillions of dollars in stimulus funds. The elements highlighted in the letter include critical efforts to safeguard our elections, the Census, the U.S. Postal Service, access to broadband internet service, as well as local journalism and to fully staff and prioritize the CARES Act Congressional Oversight Commission.