Broadband

Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I am proud to follow my very distinguished colleague from Maryland after those very powerful and eloquent remarks, and I subscribe to literally every point that he has made in representing Maryland. We are joined by Senators from all over the country, Senator Reed, and Senator Cortez Masto. This issue is truly national in scope.

It occurred to me as I was listening to Senator Van Hollen: We would not ask students to go through an education where they had no books, where they had no desks, where they had no writing instruments, where they had no teachers. The internet is as fundamental to education today as the basic building blocks of desks and teachers and books. They are our future. Our students are our future, and the internet is part of their present and future.

I want to bring this issue home to Connecticut. I convened a roundtable--as I have done in many parts of the State--in Hartford a week or so ago with the superintendent of schools, the mayor of Hartford, and parents and community groups to talk about the digital divide--or the homework gap, as it is now known so widely and colloquially.

The stories they told me about attempting to connect during this time when their students were learning remotely were absolutely heartbreaking. Students who wanted to learn and sought to participate did not have that basic opportunity because either they weren't connected or they couldn't afford it or they didn't have the computer or, in some instances, their parents couldn't connect, lacked the expertise. Many of us have been there.

It is about connectivity, written broadly, but it is also about the affordability of that service; it is about the mechanical instruments, the computers, necessary to do it; it is about parents having the expertise; and it is also about the learning habits of sitting in front of a screen and absorbing knowledge in that way--not playing video games but absorbing knowledge through distance learning.

In the absence of a robust and adequate governmental response, private groups and philanthropists are filling some of the gaps. I want to cite one in particular because it arose during that meeting. The Dalio Foundation--specifically, Barbara and Ray Dalio--along with the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, have provided computers to schools in the Hartford area.

In fact, Barbara and Ray Dalio have provided thousands of computers to schools all around Connecticut, filling that gap through their enormous generosity. They are people of vision who know that students need this basic instrument of learning. It is about access to the building blocks of education.

They are providing it, but private sources of funding and philanthropy go only so far, and that is why we are here today to talk about this really urgent issue. It is urgent for Connecticut but, literally, for every State. There should be nothing political about it. We have the wherewithal. We need the will. It is not a red State or a blue State issue. It is the United States that has to come to the rescue of American education and provide broadband connectivity.

The COVID-19 pandemic has literally exposed deep inequities--and one of them is in education--in connectivity. There are inequities in housing; redlining still exists. There are inequities in healthcare, which is the reason why the burden of this pandemic has fallen disproportionately on communities of color. In Connecticut, if you are Black, you are 2\1/2\ times more likely to die of the coronavirus, but one of the most pernicious injustices are the barriers that prevent access to virtual learning and online education.

Schools in communities across Connecticut and the country are grappling with this unprecedented question: When is it safe to reopen? That answer will depend on local circumstance, the opinions of scientists, public health experts' views. Listen to the epidemiologists and the scientists, not to the politicians. Undoubtedly, there will be, in some cases, virtual learning and, in others, a hybrid of virtual and physically present learning.

We have to recognize that the internet is going to be essential in many, many communities in Connecticut and around the country, and some communities will choose virtual learning in order to keep their students, their teachers, and their parents safe, but the digital divide will plague it, and it will plague almost every community.

We have this notion that somehow it is limited to rural areas or it is limited to some States. It is, in fact, endemic to almost every community in our Nation that some students are isolated and divided and that some of our young people experience this homework gap.

As my colleague Senator Van Hollen said, one-quarter of all students nationally are at risk of losing months of education because their homes still lack adequate home internet.

We take broadband for granted. We rely on it every day in this building and in many others around the country, in office buildings and in many schools; but for some parents and children, it is absent, and that is why the measures that we have suggested are so vital.

As with far too many of our divisions, the weight of these inequities falls disproportionately and dangerously on communities of color. In fact, at least 30 percent of African-American students lack access to broadband, as well as 35 percent of Native Americans. We are leaving behind those students who most need the help, and in this time of national reckoning over racial justice, these barriers to education and opportunity are even more dramatic, more profound, and more lasting.

We have to take the kind of significant steps now that we took after Hurricane Katrina. The FCC took sweeping action to make sure that individuals whose lives were upended by disaster were connected. Within 1 month, the FCC dedicated more than $200 million to fund connectivity efforts and aggressively expanded Lifeline and E-Rate programs. We are not even close to matching that commitment.

Remember, the bold plan in that instance was from George W. Bush and from the FCC majority he appointed. This time, again, we must take bold, bipartisan action. We can help bridge this divide and close the gap.

I have joined my colleagues in pushing for emergency funds for broadband access, for the Lifeline program, for E-Rate; yet, when I asked the chairman of the FCC at a most recent Commerce Committee hearing, he was unwilling to commit to the billion-dollar program that I have suggested in various proposals, along with colleagues, is a minimum that we should set forward. These proposals should be a first step toward congressional action, a kind of rubric.

I was proud to introduce the Emergency Broadband Connections Act with Senator Wyden to provide families with assistance so they can afford broadband connections and to reinforce the Lifeline program. I am also proud to work with Senator Markey and others on the Emergency Education Connections Act to ensure that the FCC's E-Rate program can help all K- 12 students obtain broadband and devices.

As a country, there have been so many sacrifices made by so many and so much heartbreak and hardship. This absence of broadband should not be one of those sacrifices that we impose on our children.

We have the opportunity and the obligation to act now. I urge my Republican colleagues to take this stark reality and include funding to address the Homework Act within the long-overdue COVID-19 package. We need to take this obligation seriously. We need to seize this moment. It is a moment of reckoning, and we cannot fail to meet the challenge.

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