Economic Stimulus

Floor Speech

ECONOMIC STIMULUS -- (Senate - January 07, 2009)

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, we all know the American economy is in a challenged state. That is a nice way of putting it. I spent about a week in December traveling around my State visiting 22 counties, meeting with people who had been working three jobs, had their hours reduced, were afraid they weren't going to be able to buy their grandkids Christmas presents. Letters coming to my office included a woman who said she inherited a small amount of money from her dad. She thought that would go to her daughter's wedding, but instead it was used to pay for her retirement because she had lost so much money from her retirement funds. We heard stories of a man and his wife who would put their daughters to bed at night and gather at the kitchen table, shaking their heads and wondering how they were going to make it. Those were the comments I heard when I was home in Minnesota in December.

I also saw some optimism and hope as I traveled the State and saw the growing energy economy and heard the enthusiasm for our new President-elect. Obviously, there was frustration with what has been going on with this administration for the past 8 years and how they have not had a forward-thinking plan for the economy. People have hope that is going to change.

I can tell there is widespread interest in the economic stimulus package proposed by the new President. There is widespread interest in my State for infrastructure spending, for the energy jobs. One thing I believe we need to devote some specific time to in the next few weeks--and I know the new President is interested in this--is the idea of looking not only at roads and bridges and infrastructure but to look at technological infrastructure, to figure out why we have had trouble competing with countries around the world.

When one talks to people in Park Rapids, MN, who go maybe a mile out of town, they can't get on the Internet or it costs them $700 a month if they are going to do satellite, or they can be stuck with dial-up that is so slow they can hardly use it, you get to understand the need for better technological infrastructure. What I finally figured out, after this 22-county tour--I had been trying to figure out why some companies say they are offering Internet service. I finally figured out what the problem is. In many parts of my State, they may have Internet service, but it is either much too slow or much too expensive.

As a country we have ensured that every American has access to telephone service and electricity regardless of economic status. We must now do the same for broadband Internet access. Broadband not only creates educational and health care opportunities, it can create opportunities for businesses and employment that would otherwise not exist in rural communities.

In these tough economic times, broadband deployment creates jobs--not only the direct creation of jobs in the tech sector but also the creation of even more indirect employment opportunities by increasing access to broadband.

After visiting 22 of Minnesota's counties, I convened a Broadband Roundtable in my State on December 29. I heard firsthand from people about the importance of making sure they have access to fast and affordable broadband. We have had success stories in our State, as well.

One story I heard when I was out in a small town in Minnesota--Sebeka--they began diversifying early into cutting-edge technologies, including fiber optic infrastructure, digital telephone switching, cable and satellite TV, broadband Internet service to 100 percent of their customers. They have a very high percentage--I think 70 to 80 percent--of people who are actually purchasing this high-speed Internet in a very small town in a remote area of Minnesota.

The government of Carver County, MN, is leading a collaborative effort to interconnect county facilities with cities, school districts, townships, and other entities in the development of high-speed communications.

Through a number of funding and technical assistance programs, Minnesota's Blandin Foundation's Broadband Initiative has worked in rural Minnesota communities to educate community leaders and to get these partnerships started.

Despite these local success stories, however, much more needs to be done. The overall reality is America has become an international laggard on broadband. In 2000, the United States ranked 4th among 30 nations surveyed in broadband subscribership, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Today, the United States is 15th on the list. So in the last 8 years, we have gone from 4th in the world to 15th in the world. That is not the kind of progress that is going to keep this country moving and get us back on track.

According to the International Telecommunications Union, the United States is now perched as 24th in the world in broadband penetration. Canada has a higher level of broadband penetration and digital opportunity than we do.

Broadband adoption in the United States does continue to grow--from 47 percent of homes in March 2007 to 55 percent in April 2008. But the figure is significantly lower for those living in rural America: only 38 percent.

Of course, we have to consider more than just access, as I noted earlier. We need to look at speed. We need to look at speed if we are going to compete with countries such as India and Japan.

So we have work ahead of us. All of us understand broadband is a critical infrastructure for the 21st century. By one estimate--to give you a sense of what we are talking about, jobs--every 1 percentage point increase in broadband penetration per year would lead to the creation of nearly 300,000 new jobs. That is why it is essential that all communities, including our rural communities, have the opportunity to take advantage of the opportunities offered by this 21st-century infrastructure. I want these jobs in my State going to Thief River Falls or Lanesboro or Crookston instead of going off to other countries such as Japan and India. It is that simple. I want these jobs to stay in the United States. We have seen the challenge before to make sure our rural communities are not left behind as technology develops.

For example, there are still many Americans who can remember growing up in homes with no electricity and no telephone service. In 1935, about 80 percent of all homes and towns and cities in the United States had electricity, but fewer than 12 percent of farms in America had electricity, and only about 25 percent had telephone service, which was often unreliable.

In 1935, President Roosevelt created the Rural Electrification Administration, REA. The REA helped organize and support farmer-owned electric cooperatives to bring electricity to farms. By 1949--this was from 1935 to 1949--more than three-quarters of all farms in America had electricity. So with those standards that were put in place, it went from 12 percent to 75 percent. That is an amazing achievement during a time of crisis because people believed you could get this done.

The penetration of telephone service actually took longer. In 1949, only 36 percent of America's farms had telephone service. That year, a telephone amendment was added to the Rural Electrification Act, which made loan funds available to finance rural telephone systems. In just a little more than a decade, nearly 80 percent of farms had telephone service.

Even much of our modern transportation infrastructure--including paved roads and steel and concrete bridges--has come into existence only in the past 70 years, thanks to both the New Deal and President Eisenhower's Interstate Highway Program. Our broadband infrastructure presents us with the same challenge to make sure no one is left behind.

President-elect Obama understands that broadband must now be considered a basic part of our national infrastructure. He also understands that investment in our broadband infrastructure is essential to our long-term prosperity.

A few weeks ago, in a weekly address, President-elect Obama announced that a key part of his economic recovery plan would involve increasing broadband deployment and adoption, saying:

It is unacceptable that the United States ranks 15th in the world in broadband adoption.

On Monday of this week, I sent a letter to the President-elect applauding his efforts to include investment in our Nation's information infrastructure as
part of an economic stimulus package. I also asked that he consider these partnerships that we have seen work so well in our State, and that matching grants on the Federal level to work with the local communities would be one way to spur broadband development.

I finally asked him to look at the fact that this is not just about communities that have no access, it is also about communities that have bad access or slow access or too expensive access. If we really want to get the broadband infrastructure in place, we have to make it work for everyone, just as what Dwight D. Eisenhower did with the highway system in the 1950s, and just as President Roosevelt did with rural electrification in the 1930s and 1940s.

I believe any economic stimulus package must include mechanisms designed to bring affordable and fast broadband to this country. An economic stimulus package should fully fund the Broadband Data Improvement Act, which I cosponsored and which passed last Congress.

Any economic stimulus package, as I mentioned, must also fund matching grants for community-level partnerships that demonstrate strong cooperation among local governments, businesses, schools, health care, and others.

Finally, one aspect of the Nation's information infrastructure that may continue to elude us absent some type of Federal involvement is the creation of an advanced, interoperable communications network for public safety.

I still remember hearing when one of our police officers was shot and killed in St. Paul, MN, how those who were trying to apprehend the person, the murderer in this case, were trying to communicate. When they were up in the helicopter, they literally had to have multiple walkie talkies and telephones, sometimes six or seven, to try to match up with all the phone systems that were in use across the area.

Well, since then we have had improvements in the large metropolitan area of the Twin Cities in our interoperability, but we do not have that kind of matching and that kind of cooperation in the rural parts of our State, nor do we have it across the country.

The first responsibility of government is to protect its citizens. The fact that our Nation's police, fire, and other first responders, including those in our rural areas, still do not have access to such a network more than 7 years after the tragic events of September 11 is simply unacceptable. I believe consideration of this issue in the context of broadband stimulus measures may present the best chance to address this continuing problem.

I join the President-elect and so many in this Senate in calling for 21st-century technology to create jobs and help our economy be more robust and competitive in the long term. This is about creating immediate jobs, and we can get that with technological infrastructure. But it is also about creating jobs in a way that leaves us with something that will actually move this economy forward.

This technological infrastructure, whether it be the electricity grid or whether it be the broadband I have spoken about today, is really our rural electrification. It is our interstate highway program. It is our generation's chance to build this infrastructure in a way that will fit the changing needs of this country and allow us to compete on the world stage.

Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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