Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Madam President, the internet has been a part of our daily lives for quite a while now: Netflix, Twitter, and Amazon. The internet has taken on new importance during the coronavirus pandemic. It has become the main source of connection with friends and family. It has enabled many people to work from home to help reduce the spread of the virus. It is the main reason that schools and colleges have been able to continue teaching students.

It has drastically expanded nascent services, like telehealth, which has allowed doctors and other medical professionals to provide patient care remotely.

With all of this new internet traffic, of course, has come a much greater load on networks. Not all countries' networks have held up to the strain. In Europe, networks have had to slow streaming and ask providers like Netflix to diminish the quality of their videos.

Here in the United States, our networks have faced very few problems, and there is a reason for that. Europe and the United States have very different regulatory regimes for the internet. In Europe, the internet has been regulated using outdated communications rules designed for telephone monopolies. This has resulted in heavyhanded regulation, which has discouraged companies from investing in communications infrastructure and broadband expansion.

The resulting lack of reliable infrastructure is the primary reason internet performance in Europe has suffered during the pandemic. The regulatory situation in the United States, on the other hand, has been much different. With a few exceptions, like the brief imposition of so- called net neutrality regulations in 2015, our country has taken a light-touch approach to internet regulation.

This has encouraged companies to invest in the latest communications infrastructure and new technologies to make more efficient use of spectrum. Thanks to that investment, when coronavirus hit and internet usage soared, American networks were ready. Despite the additional burden on networks during the pandemic, Americans have been able to enjoy the same high speeds and streaming quality that they typically enjoy. Right now, most Americans are using 4G networks.

The next generation of internet, 5G, is here. 5G networks are starting to be deployed, including in my home State of South Dakota. If we want the United States to handle 5G the way that we handled 4G and if we want our 5G networks to be as successful as our 4G networks, we still have some work to do.

One thing that is absolutely essential is maintaining the light-touch regulatory approach that has produced so much U.S. investment and innovation. Despite the success of light-touch regulation, there is always a segment of the Democratic Party pushing for greater government regulation of the internet, and that would chill American broadband investment.

When Democrats briefly succeeded in forcing through heavier government regulations in the latter part of the Obama Presidency, broadband infrastructure investment by U.S. companies dropped significantly, and it only rebounded when the Federal Communications Commission, under Chairman Pai, rolled back these heavyhanded regulations.

Second, the United States still has more work to do to deploy the infrastructure necessary for 5G. While 4G relies on traditional cell phone towers, 5G technology will also require small antennas called ``small cells'' that can often be attached to existing infrastructure, like utility poles or buildings.

Last year, I introduced legislation, the STREAMLINE Act, to make it easier for companies to deploy these small cells so that we can get the infrastructure in place for 5G technology. We also need to update Federal regulations to ensure that it doesn't take months or years to get permits for wireless infrastructure.

Infrastructure is a key part of the 5G equation. The other key part is spectrum. Like all internet technology, 5G relies on radio spectrum--what we commonly call the airwaves. Radio spectrum is divided into bands--low band, mid band, and high band. 5G will rely upon all three.

The United States has done a good job freeing up high-band spectrum for 5G, but we still need to free up more mid-band spectrum to see full-scale 55 deployment.

In 2018, Congress passed my MOBILE NOW Act, which helped lay the groundwork for freeing up more mid-band spectrum.

This past November, Senator Wicker and I introduced the 5G Spectrum Act to require the Federal Communications Commission to free up a critical portion of mid-band spectrum, commonly referred to as the C- band for 5G use.

While Congress did not enact our legislation at the end of February, the Federal Communications Commission announced that it would adopt a framework similar to that outlined in our bill to make 280 megahertz of C-band spectrum available for 5G.

Finally, we need to ensure that we have the workforce in place to handle the demands of installing and maintaining 5G technology. It is estimated that deploying the necessary infrastructure for 5G will create approximately 50,000 new construction jobs each year over the build-out period, and that is just for construction.

Right now, there simply aren't enough workers with the necessary training to meet the needs of nationwide 5G. Earlier this year, I introduced the Telecommunications Skilled Workforce Act. My bill would help to increase the number of workers enrolled in 5G training programs and identify ways to grow the telecommunications workforce to meet the demands of 5G.

The coronavirus has shown us the result of robust investment in 4G infrastructure and spectrum--strong networks that can handle steep surge in internet traffic. We need to make sure that we are putting in the necessary work and investment to ensure that our 5G networks are just as strong.

The 5G future is here. Let's make sure that the United States is ready Coronavirus

Madam President, before we vote here in just a few minutes, I want to just make a couple of remarks with respect to coronavirus legislation. We have heard some of our colleagues on the Democrat side come down here and attack Republicans for not wanting to do more legislation and more spending, which is, as they know, completely not accurate. Republicans are prepared to do whatever it takes to help America recover from the coronavirus effects and to deal with the health emergency, which is why we have invested tens of billions of dollars in vaccines and antiviral therapeutics and testing--all the things that are necessary to get this healthcare crisis dealt with in a way that would allow Americans the confidence to get back out in the economy.

Secondly, dealing with the economic impacts, which have been many, the bills that we passed so far--we passed four--and the combined amount of the spending in those four bills are almost $3 trillion. It is focused on families, getting direct assistance into the hands of American families. It is focused on workers, keeping workers employed. This Paycheck Protection Program has clearly been one that has allowed a lot of small businesses to continue to operate and to continue to keep their workers employed. It is focused on those who, through no fault of their own, have lost jobs, with a significant plus-up in unemployment insurance accounts, supported at the State level but significantly increased in terms of funding from the Federal Government.

Of course, as I said earlier, it is focused very directly on those healthcare professionals or healthcare workers on the frontlines, to make sure that they have PPE and ventilators, all the things not only to protect themselves but to care for the patients whom they are entrusted to care for. As I said before, investing heavily in those things will help us fight and win and beat the coronavirus--the vaccines, the antiviral therapeutics, and the testing. Those are all things that we have done already.

Now, what you saw last week was the House of Representatives blow into town for a 24-hour period to pass a massive $3 trillion bill filled up with all kinds of goodies in a gift bag for special interest groups that they care about but that have little to do with addressing the fundamental challenges facing this country with respect to the coronavirus.

I would argue that not only do they not know what the need is but that many of the dollars we have already pushed out are still in the pipeline and haven't been used. We don't know what our State and local governments need in terms of revenue replacement, and we have lots of dollars that are still going out to hospitals, healthcare providers, and nursing homes, much of which hasn't been spent yet. Of course we have the Paycheck Protection Program, which we are burning through fairly quickly but hasn't run out of funding yet either. As I said, those are all the things--the almost $3 trillion--that have been disbursed and distributed already to address this crisis.

What Democrats did last week in the House of Representatives is that they came in with a philosophical, ideological wish list--a fantasy, if you will--of all of the things they would like to get done, very few of which actually deal with the crisis at hand, so much so that their bill--1,800 pages long, $3 trillion in new spending, again, without knowing what the effect is of dollars already spent or what the need is out there for additional spending--included things like funding for studies on diversity and inclusion in the marketing of cannabis. Is that really something that is relevant to fighting and battling the coronavirus? They included in there tax increases for small businesses. The one tax cut they included in their bill dramatically cuts taxes for millionaires and billionaires. In fact, 56 percent of that tax cut would go to the top 1 percent of wage earners in this country. Those are the types of things that were included in that bill. It really was an ideological wish list--nothing more, nothing less, and nothing else.

So for Democratic leaders to come down here and suggest for a minute that what the House did somehow ought to be something that the Senate contemplates or considers doing here is just completely missing the point of what the American people need in this crisis, and that is certainty. They need to know that we are dealing with the health emergency. They need to know that there is going to be support there for our small businesses, for our workers, for people who are unemployed, and for our families. They need to know that we are committed to seeing that we have the vaccines in place, the therapeutics in place that will enable us to fight and win this battle against the coronavirus. That is what we ought to be focused on, not this crazy wish list of things that the House, in a short amount of time--24 hours--came in here to vote on and, as I said earlier, much of which was focused on an agenda--a more permanent agenda--rather than the task at hand, which is addressing the crisis in front of us.

I hope my Democratic colleagues will work with us in a constructive way and in a bipartisan way to deal with the very real challenges that are being faced by the American people and not continue to come down here and advocate for an ideological wish list that, one, can't become law, and two, doesn't deal with the task at hand.

Cloture Motion

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Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski), and the Senator from South Dakota (Mr. Rounds).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander) would have voted ``yea.''

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