[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 138 (Tuesday, August 3, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5683-S5685]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
LEGISLATIVE SESSION
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INVESTING IN A NEW VISION FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND SURFACE
TRANSPORTATION IN AMERICA ACT
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
Senate will resume consideration of H.R. 3684, which the clerk will
report.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (H.R. 3684) to authorize funds for Federal-aid
highways, highway safety programs, and transit programs, and
for other purposes.
Pending:
[[Page S5684]]
Schumer (for Sinema) amendment No. 2137, in the nature of a
substitute.
Carper-Capito amendment No. 2131 (to amendment No. 2137),
to strike a definition.
Schumer (for Lummis) amendment No. 2181 (to amendment No.
2137), to require the Secretary of Transportation to carry
out a highway cost allocation study.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Maine.
January 6
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, while we are awaiting others to come to
the Senate floor, let me express my deep sorrow about learning of the
deaths of two more police officers who responded to safeguard all of us
in the Capitol on January 6.
My heart goes out to their families and their fellow officers, both
here on Capitol Hill and also in the District of Columbia police force.
I am wearing a button that was given to me several years ago after
the Capitol Police, once again, acted heroically. It says: ``Thank you,
Capitol Police.''
I hope each and every one of us will take time today to thank these
courageous men and women who are working so hard to keep us safe and
many of whom still bear the physical injuries and the emotional trauma
of that dark day in our Nation's history.
H.R. 3684
Mr. President, I would like now to turn to briefly speak about the
broadband provisions that are included in the infrastructure package.
My friend and colleague Senator Jeanne Shaheen, from New Hampshire, and
I worked with a number of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to
craft this package.
The pandemic that we have endured for more than a year laid bear the
disparities in access to high-speed internet. It made it difficult for
children to be educated online, impossible for some individuals to work
at home, and removed the possibility of telemedicine consultations for
some of our sick and seniors.
The fact is that approximately 19 million Americans still lack access
to high-speed internet. We talk a lot in this bill about bridges and
building bridges, and we do need to do that. Well, it is time for us to
bridge America's digital divide and build a 21st-century broadband
infrastructure that will meet our country's needs not only today but
for years to come, to be future-proof, if you will.
The bipartisan infrastructure plan invests $65 billion to address our
Nation's digital divide once and for all, and I would note that that is
in addition to the previous funding that we provided in the COVID bills
to help bridge the digital divide.
Also, in the March $1.9 trillion bill, there is language that was
authored by Senator Manchin that allows States to use some of the
allocation that they receive to invest in broadband. In addition, I am
hopeful that we will consider and adopt an amendment that Senator
Cornyn has authored that will give more flexibility to States to invest
in broadband, using some of the allocation that they received.
Our bill, the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act,
would provide more than $42 billion in grants to States for deployment.
It does not favor particular technologies or providers, and projects
would have to meet a minimum download-upload build standard of 100 over
20 megabits per second.
The funding includes a 10-percent set-aside for high-cost areas, and
each State, territory, and the District of Columbia would receive an
initial minimum allocation, a portion of which could be used for
technical assistance and supporting or establishing a State broadband
office. In my State of Maine, the Governor has used some of those COVID
funds in order to establish a new Maine Connect Authority that will be
very helpful.
States would be required to prioritize deployment in unserved areas
first. That is so important. Then they could move to underserved areas.
I talked to a selectman recently from Swans Island off the coast of
Maine. They desperately need access to broadband services, and they do
not have it. I am thinking of what a difference it would make to the
lives of the people who live on that island. I have also talked to
people in Northern Maine, for example, in the town of Easton, ME, where
one family told me that it would cost $15,000 for them to be connected
to the internet. They don't have that kind of money. Few people in
Maine do.
That is why there is another part of our bill that speaks to
affordability, and in this provision, we plussed up to $14.2 billion.
Additional funds would be devoted to subsidize broadband service for
eligible households that meet needs-based criteria. An example would be
eligibility for school lunches. This allocation of funds is so
important to rural America as well as unserved areas in our inner
cities.
The bill that we have before us includes $2 billion to support
programs administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, including
the ReConnect Program that provides loans and grants or a combination
to fund the construction, acquisition, and improvement of facilities
and equipment that provides broadband service in rural areas.
Supplementing that are private activity funds, where $600 million has
been allocated. This is based on a bill that was introduced by Senator
Hassan and Senator Capito, another bipartisan bill that is called the
Rural Broadband Financing Flexibility Act. It would allow States to
issue private activity bonds to finance broadband deployment,
specifically, for projects in rural areas where a majority of the
households do not have access to broadband.
We also included an additional $2 billion for the Tribal Broadband
Connectivity Program, which was established by the COVID bill that we
passed in December and is administered by the NTIA in the Department of
Commerce.
Grants from this program will be made eligible--will be made
available to eligible Native American, Alaska Native, and Native
Hawaiian entities for broadband deployment as well as for digital
inclusion, workforce development, telehealth, and distance learning.
Our bill also includes $2.75 billion for the Digital Equity Act,
which was introduced by Senators Murray, Portman, and King.
It establishes two NTIA-administered grant programs that would help
communities that have not yet secured the skills, technologies, and
support needed to take advantage of broadband connection.
In that regard, I would note an article that appeared this morning in
Roll Call that is entitled ``Industry groups, equity advocates applaud
infrastructure bill's broadband provisions.'' I am proud of that. We
worked very hard to make sure that there was widespread support for
this legislation, particularly the broadband provisions.
We also included additional funding, $1 billion, for the so-called
middle mile. This would create a State grant program for the
construction, improvement, and acquisition of middle mile
infrastructure.
And I would note that eligible entities include telecommunications
companies, technology companies, electric utilities, utility
cooperatives, a wide range of businesses and organizations that could
help us with that middle mile.
And that refers to the installation of a dedicated line that
transmits a signal to and from the internet point of presence.
Competition of middle mile routes is necessary--completion of those
middle mile routes is necessary to serve areas and reduce capital
expenditures and lower operating costs.
So originally we had $500 million for this; the final package has $1
billion, at the request of certain Members from the Presiding Officer's
side of the aisle.
So my point is that the broadband provisions in this bill are going
to make such a difference. We are in an era where, I think most of us
would agree, that access to high-speed internet is another way that we
connect, just as roads and bridges are ways that we connect. We connect
to family members; we connect to friends; we connect to our colleagues
at work; we connect to healthcare providers; we connect to educators;
and it is absolutely essential that we make this investment, and it is
a generous investment, so that we can eliminate the disparities that
were laid bare by the pandemic and bring high-speed internet to every
section of our country.
The technologies may differ, the providers will certainly not be the
same,
[[Page S5685]]
but this investment will make a real difference to so many Americans
who today still lack access to high-speed internet.
I see the Republican leader has arrived on the floor.
I yield the floor.
Recognition of the Minority Leader
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader is
recognized.
Biden Administration
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, it has been a little more than 6 months
since the Biden administration and our Democratic-led Congress were
sworn in. So let's zoom out from the daily political drama and ask the
simplest possible question: How is it going? How is the leadership
working out for middle-class families? Or put more directly: What big
aspects of our national life could Democrats even claim are headed in
the right direction on their watch?
In January, our Democratic friends inherited the most favorable trend
lines that any incoming administration could possibly ask for. Three
safe and effective vaccines had been discovered, developed, and were
already spreading across our country. Our economy was packed with dry
powder and ready for a historic comeback. It was already morning in
America when this Democratic government showed up. Mostly what they had
to do was not get in the way.
So where are we 6 months in? The U.S. economy has broken some recent
records, mostly the wrong ones. Inflation just clocked its steepest 12-
month increase in more than a decade. The month before, a separate
measure of core inflation rose at its fastest rate since 1992--higher
gas prices, higher grocery prices, soaring costs for everything from
household purchases, to automobiles, to housing itself.
Inflation is painful enough, but it isn't the only problem.
Employment growth has not been fast enough. Last quarter, GDP grew much
more slowly than anticipated. Six months and trillions of dollars of
government spending into the Democrats' efforts at a recovery, and
Gallup says America's economic confidence is still only neutral. We are
not--we are not--where we need to be.
What about the rule of law? There is still a historic surge in people
trying to come across our southern border, but administration officials
have spent far more energy denying responsibility for the problem than
trying to fix it. Catch and release is still the name of the game.
According to news reports, out of tens of thousands of illegal
immigrants who have simply been released into the interior of our
country without a court date--now listen to this--just 13 percent--13
percent have shown up at their mandatory meeting with ICE afterward.
So the border is functionally open--especially absurd at a time when
many leaders are asking American citizens to step up various COVID
precautions. Not much testing, social distancing, or mask wearing is
happening in the Rio Grande Valley.
Meanwhile, a surge in violent crime, including recordbreaking murders
in many places, has too many citizens afraid of their own city streets.
Perhaps our Democratic friends think foreign policy is going well. I
sure wish it were. The President's rushed pullback from Afghanistan has
left our friends and partners in the lurch and rolled out a red carpet
for a Taliban takeover that is already underway. Its approach to Iran
appears to be promising big concessions to our adversary for no reason
even as their terrorist proxies continue to attack U.S., Israeli, and
Arab interests all across the region.
While I appreciate the administration's tough talk on Russia and
China, those words ring hollow when they fail to impose real
consequences on cyber attacks and propose to cut our defense spending
after inflation.
So what about COVID-19 itself? Certainly, the pandemic is not the
fault of any administration or any political party, but this
administration boasted with great confidence they had a playbook that
was guaranteed to crush the virus. They have continued to roll out the
vaccines the prior administration developed, and for that, they
certainly deserve some credit. But, especially recently, Americans have
received far too many mixed messages and muddied communications about
masks, vaccines, and what risks remain and for whom.
Meanwhile, the Democrats' allies in the teachers unions continue to
speculate publicly that perhaps schools may not remain open this fall
after all. They are flirting with another lost year for our kids even
when there are safe and effective vaccines that can reduce adults' risk
of grave illness to almost nil and when we know that, mercifully, this
virus has mostly spared children from serious illness the whole time.
So, look, everyone is rooting for America; everyone is rooting for
the recovery that middle-class families deserve; but that is not what
the Democrats' decisions and policies are delivering. No wonder
America's optimism has been in free fall the last few months. One
survey found that a majority--55 percent--are pessimistic about where
the country is headed in the coming year. That pessimism has increased
almost 20 percentage points since just this spring.
The soul of America has not been restored. It is anxious, it is
uneasy, and in too many cases, the more the Democrats' policies have
taken effect, the more problems American families have faced.
Now, certainly, the 6-month mark still provides plenty of time for my
Democratic colleagues to recalibrate. We have already notched some
bipartisan wins here in the Senate. Our colleagues could put away the
partisan approach that has already supercharged inflation, slowed
rehiring, and is setting back our national security. But, alas, our
Democratic colleagues are signaling they are still addicted to going it
alone.
My friends on the other side are signaling that a few days from now,
just a few days from now, they will begin the process of ramming
through a reckless, multitrillion-dollar taxing-and-spending spree that
will stick middle-class families with higher costs, more inflation,
fewer jobs, and lower wages.
It is not the strategy that will turn around Democrats' lackluster
report card; it will do just the opposite. It almost seems designed to
make every problem that families are facing considerably worse. It
would meet significant inflation with another massive avalanche of
printing and borrowing. It would hammer a tenuous economic recovery
with historic tax hikes and job-killing Green New Deal regulations. It
would, for some reason, respond to a live border crisis with a big
amnesty to lure even more people here illegally.
No working American in Kentucky or anywhere else would look at a plan
like this and get on board, and neither will a single Republican. If
Washington Democrats really want to take the remarkable head start they
inherited at the dawn of this recovery year and squander it through bad
policy, they will need to do it all alone.
Ms. COLLINS. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Padilla). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
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