Federal

Around the country, there are now elaborate alert systems in areas subject to tornados and other dangerous weather events.

Democratic subcommittee chairs for the 118^th Congress are:

Congressman Tim Walberg (R-MI) introduced the Telehealth Benefit Expansion for Workers Act (H.R.824), bipartisan legislation which would expand access to telehealth services by classifying these services as an excepted benefit for employer-sponsored health coverage. 

Congressman Jeff Duncan (R-SC) and Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) introduced H.R. 742, the TELL Act (Telling Everyone the Location of Data Leaving the US Act), to protect American data from the Chinese Communist Party. This legislation allows the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to endorse rules that allow Americans to know if their data has been compromised by China and if it is being stored, transferred, or exposed to China or companies owned by the Chinese Communist Party.

The South Carolina Broadband Office (SCBBO) announced 56 newly funded projects through its American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds Priority 1.0 (ARPA SLFRF 1.0) grant program. For this round of investments, the SCBBO committed $132,799,403 to 15 broadband providers in 33 counties.  The total project cost for this round of broadband expansion is estimated to be $256,755,322.

As of 2021, roughly 13 percent of Alabama’s 1.65 million addresses were unserved by broadband of at least 25 Megabits per second (Mbps) download and 3 Mbps upload (25/3), while about 19 percent of addresses were unserved by 100/20 service—the threshold recommended as the state’s five-year target to align with new federal funding opportunities. Higher-speed services like 100/100 and symmetrical 1 Gbps were available only to about 25 percent of addresses.

Ryan Grewell, who runs a small wireless Internet service provider called Smart Way Communications in Ohio, filed challenges to the Federal Communications Commission's new broadband map after his customers noticed that the FCC map falsely reported fiber Internet service was available at their homes. The FCC data was provided by Jefferson County Cable. In a reply to Grewell's challenges,  Jefferson County Cable Executive Bob Loveridge wrote, "You challenged that we do not have service at your residence and indeed we don't today.

Unfortunately, the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) is set to run out of funds as soon as early 2024. For conservatives who are rightly concerned about traditional government subsidies, I humbly suggest that extending the ACP by appropriating additional funds for the program is well within our economic principles, even when we absolutely must shrink overall federal spending.

The old definition of a broadband passing is quickly growing obsolete and the Federal Communications Commission's mapping effort is missing the way that America really uses broadband today. After a decade of talking about the inadequate FCC broadband maps, we finally decided to throw money at the issue and devise new maps. But in the decade it took to move forward, we’ve developed multiple non-traditional uses for broadband, a trend that is likely to expand.

Gigi Sohn is gay. She’s also a highly qualified nominee for the Federal Communications Commission with decades of experience as a public interest advocate working on issues of affordable broadband access, net neutrality, and closing the digital divide.