President Joe Biden's administration should do more to bridge the "widening digital gender divide," said Kim Keenan, Internet Innovation Alliance co-chair, in an Essence column Thursday. Nearly 327 million fewer women than men worldwide have access to mobile internet or a smartphone, Keenan said. Require companies like Facebook and Google contribute to Lifeline because they "make money through the internet," Keenan said.
President Joe Biden's broadband plan is an "expensive wish list" that would "undermine, rather than promote, its core objectives," blogged Free State Foundation President Randolph May and Senior Fellow Andrew Long. It would redefine what a "served" area is by prioritizing fiber to the home over other technologies, they said.
The Commerce Department is focused on gaining support for President Joe Biden’s jobs plan, which includes increased funding for the semiconductor industry, Secretary Gina Raimondo said: The administration also is reviewing China policies. “We are right now undergoing a whole-of-government review,” Raimondo told Commerce’s Advisory Committee on Supply Chain Competitiveness. “It's fair to say there may be changes, but it's early for me to say what the changes might be.” Regardless of policy changes, she said Thursday, Commerce will look to hold China accountable for unfair trade actions. Legislators and others are watching how that affects Chinese telecom gearmakers (see 2104080006).
Former NSA intelligence officer Jen Easterly’s nomination to be director of the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency was sent to the Senate, the White House said Thursday (see 2104120059).
Vice President Kamala Harris highlighted President Joe Biden’s proposed $100 billion broadband request Monday in selling the administration’s overall $2.3 trillion infrastructure proposal (see 2104140069). Biden, meanwhile, discussed the plan with 10 members of Congress who are former governors or mayors. “The world runs online,” but “millions of Americans, many of whom live in rural America, do not have access to broadband,” Harris said during a speech in Jamestown, North Carolina. “If they do, it is not affordable.” Biden “and I are determined to make sure that every person in our country can access broadband and afford it,” Harris said. Biden told reporters he’s “prepared to compromise” on aspects of his proposal, including its scope. “I’m prepared to see what we can do and what we can get together on” in a compromise, he said. “It’s a big package, but there are a lot of needs.” Lawmakers participating in the meeting included Senate Commerce Committee member John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., and House Appropriations Committee ranking member Kay Granger, R-Texas. “We’re quite open to a range of mechanisms for agreed-upon legislation moving forward,” including “smaller packages” or “pieces being peeled off,” said White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki. “In terms of what the package or size looks like, we’re just not quite there yet.” Some industry officials have also been meeting with lawmakers in hopes of allocating some infrastructure money for 5G-specific uses, lobbyists told us. Microsoft President Brad Smith backed Biden’s proposal Sunday but issued cautions in a USA Today opinion piece. “A challenging conversation awaits about how to pay for all this,” he said. Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., wrote in USA Today that “a bipartisan infrastructure bill is possible if Democrats are interested in working with Republicans on traditional infrastructure such as roads and bridges, and even modern infrastructure like broadband, if done correctly.”
President Joe Biden’s proposal to spend $100 billion on broadband (see 2103310064) pursues the goals of “expanding internet access and improving the quality of connectivity” in “a costly and heavy-handed way,” said American Action Forum Technology and Innovation Policy Director Jennifer Huddleston and Technology and Innovation Policy Analyst Juan Londono in a paper released Tuesday. “This new plan would have government direct deployment and pricing, diminishing market incentives for investment and innovation -- a marked shift from the current policy focusing on private-sector leadership in deployment and on targeted incentives for areas and individuals without service.” Biden’s “comments around the plan also suggest a potential move toward price controls on internet service,” AAF said. “Instead of engaging in these costly top-down programs with unproven success, policymakers should seek to work with the private sector and encourage further innovative solutions to improve access to high-quality, high-speed internet and encourage internet adoption.” Biden's effort to "future proof" broadband infrastructure (see 2103310064) would "increase inappropriately the costs of connecting unserved areas," blogged Andrew Long, Free State Foundation senior fellow. Biden's proposal to "reduce internet prices for all Americans" would also "disincentivize investment and innovation," Long said Tuesday. The FCC's current definition of broadband "unleashes the most efficient investment and innovation mechanism" to meet consumer demand, he said, but the administration's proposal would "render many viable distribution technologies ineligible to receive government subsidies simply due to their inability to deliver upstream speeds far exceeding the needs of consumers." Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., praised Biden Monday for seeking bipartisan compromise on infrastructure, after a meeting she attended on the issue earlier in the day with ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and other lawmakers (see 2104120060) “No one disagreed” during that meeting “that we need a major investment in infrastructure,” Cantwell tweeted. "I hope our colleagues will continue to talk through the details because it’s clear that transportation, housing, and broadband need more investment.”
President Joe Biden said he's "prepared to negotiate" with Republicans on the size and scope of an infrastructure spending package, but "it’s going to get down to what we call infrastructure," as he began a Monday meeting with Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and other lawmakers on the subject. Biden told reporters, "I think broadband is infrastructure. It's not just roads, bridges, highways, et cetera." Biden's proposal includes $100 billion for broadband, in line with Democrats' legislation (see 2103310064). Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg also cited the infrastructure definition debate, tweeting, "Why would anyone turn against broadband because it's not a bridge, or come out against water pipes because they're not highways?" Democrats "just spent nearly $2 trillion on a COVID relief package -- the majority of which did not go to immediate pandemic problems," Wicker tweeted after the meeting. "Now, @POTUS has a $2.3 trillion infrastructure proposal, but not even 70% of it could be called infrastructure. Where does the spending end?" Republicans are "wary" about whether Biden's meetings with the party's lawmakers are actually aimed at "working out a bipartisan deal, or if they are about window dressing that will lead to another Democrat-only reconciliation process," a Senate GOP aide said. The White House released fact sheets before the meeting outlining each state's infrastructure needs. For instance, "26% of Mississippians live in areas where, by one definition, there is no broadband infrastructure that provides minimally acceptable speeds," that state's fact sheet said. "And 50.1% of Mississippians live in areas where there is only one such internet provider. Even where infrastructure is available, broadband may be too expensive to be within reach. 23% of Mississippi households do not have an internet subscription. The American Jobs Plan will invest $100 billion to bring universal, reliable, high-speed and affordable coverage to every family in America."
President Joe Biden will nominate Chris Inglis, a former NSA deputy director, to be national cyber director, the White House announced Monday. He plans to nominate former NSA intelligence officer Jen Easterly to be director of the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
President Joe Biden's FY 2022 discretionary budget request, released Friday, asks Congress to give the Commerce Department $11.4 billion, up almost 28% from what it received for FY 2021. The money includes $39 million to NTIA "for advanced communications research," to "support the development and deployment of broadband and 5G technologies by identifying innovative approaches to spectrum sharing," the White House said. The request "ensures Commerce has additional staff and resources to analyze export control and Entity List proposals, enforce related actions, and implement executive actions related to export controls and secure telecommunications." The budget would give the National Institute of Standards and Technology $916 million, up 16% from FY 2021, the White House said. That would help NIST spur research into "computing, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence, quantum information science ... and to establish prize competitions to pursue key technology goals." Biden is seeking $2.1 billion for the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, an almost 6% boost. CISA got increased scrutiny for the 2020 SolarWinds cyber hack (see 2104060058). "This funding would allow CISA to enhance its cybersecurity tools, hire highly qualified experts, and obtain support services to protect and defend Federal information technology systems," the White House said. "The discretionary request also provides $20 million for a new Cyber Response and Recovery Fund." The request includes $500 million for the General Services Administration’s Technology Modernization Fund to “strengthen federal cybersecurity and retire antiquated legacy technology systems.” The TMF request “builds on” $1 billion provided in the American Rescue Plan Act, the White House said. The request shows a "commitment to improve cybersecurity" and "invest in researching and developing modern technologies," House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said.
Broadband “clears the definitional hurdle” of what constitutes infrastructure, but President Joe Biden’s proposal for $100 billion in broadband spending (see 2103310064) is a “blunder,” FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said Thursday in an opinion piece in The Hill. It’s “not a good thing” that Biden’s proposal “tracks many of the ideas” contained in congressional Democrats’ Accessible, Affordable Internet for All Act. HR-1783/S-745 proposes $94 billion for broadband (see 2103110060). “At the outset, their efforts ignore” the $40 billion in existing broadband funding the FCC is working to distribute, including via the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund and the new $3.2 billion emergency broadband benefit program, Carr said. “Not one penny from this $40 billion tranche has been spent.” Price tag “aside, the Democrats’ approach is plagued with substantive flaws that will only make it harder to close the digital divide,” he said. “It dedicates funds to upgrade communities that already have high-speed Internet services so that they can receive the superfast ‘future proof’ connections of tomorrow.” Carr criticized the proposal for betting “on government-owned networks as the future of connectivity” and for putting “price controls squarely on the table” when “rate regulation would be a surefire way to scare off the private sector investment needed to bridge the digital divide.” He compared the current infrastructure effort to the rollout of broadband funding in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, in which “waste, fraud, and abuse flourished.” Congressional oversight hearings “followed with vows of ‘never again,’” yet “here we are again,” Carr said. “Rather than appropriating additional dollars in blunderbuss fashion, we can administer the substantial funds already available to the FCC while unleashing additional private sector investment” by reducing regulatory barriers, as House Commerce Committee Republicans proposed in February (see 2102160067). USTelecom and others also criticized Biden’s proposal (see 2104070057).