[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 204 (Tuesday, December 17, 2019)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1601]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





    BROADBAND DEPLOYMENT ACCURACY AND TECHNOLOGICAL AVAILABILITY ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                           HON. ANNA G. ESHOO

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, December 16, 2019

  Ms. ESHOO. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4229, the 
Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability Act, as 
amended.
  We all agree that every American needs access to broadband. 
Government agencies, companies, and the philanthropic sector have 
devoted significant resources toward this goal, but our efforts are 
stymied by the fact that we have a fundamentally flawed understanding 
of where the investment is needed.
  We need accurate maps to be able to close the digital divide and the 
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) should wait until these maps 
are developed before spending billions of dollars in additional 
subsidies to build out to unserved and underserved areas.
  I commend Representatives Loebsack and Latta, along with all of the 
members of the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology for their 
diligent work to find a bipartisan solution to this problem that will 
solve our mapping problem once and for all.
  I'm also pleased that the legislation includes an amendment I 
authored that protects the privacy of Americans. The bill allows the 
FCC to contract out the development of a database of all buildings 
developed by processing millions of property records about every home, 
business, and community institution in the country. These records often 
include private data about property owners and the property itself, 
including property values.
  My provision simply prohibits the FCC's contractor from selling this 
vast amount of data for marketing or other purposes, a practice common 
among data brokers. Our country doesn't need more data brokers. Any 
company using money authorized by Congress should only use its work 
product for the benefit of the American people in the ways that we 
expressly authorize.
  I'm a proud cosponsor of this legislation, and I urge my colleagues 
to vote for it.

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