US Senate

Senators Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), both members of the Senate Commerce Committee, introduced the Every Child Connected Act—legislation that aims to reduce the digital divide between students with and without internet access, known as the Homework Gap. Specifically, the legislation accomplishes this goal by targeting available funding sources from Federal Trade Commission data privacy violations to provide vital connectivity to American students at home. The Every Child Connected Act would: 

A bipartisan group of senators and representatives unveiled highlights of the $748 billion Bipartisan COVID-19 Emergency Relief Act of 2020. Provisions for broadband include:

Sen Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai voicing her concerns about the ability of Frontier Communications to meet the obligations required by the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction program. This letter follows the recent announcement that nine providers won bids to cover West Virginia through the RDOF program.

In a letter the leadership of the Senate and the Senate Committee on Appropriations, senators urged full funding for the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act and the Broadband DATA Act. The Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act (“rip and replace”) created a program to help small, rural telecommunications operators remove equipment posing a security threat to domestic networks and replace it with equipment from trusted providers. Fully funding the Broadband DATA Act would ensure more accurate broadband maps and better stewardship over the millions of dollars the federal go

Sens.