It was a great, great, great hearing.

This lack of broadband, in many areas, especially rural areas, is a serious impediment to many facets of American life, including economic development.

This lack of broadband in many rural areas is a serious impediment to many facets of American life, including economic development.

We are all excited on both sides of the aisle about reauthorizing the EDA.

While EDA can and does fund some broadband projects, we must ensure any unnecessary hurdles are addressed so we can help more Americans get connected.

Thank you. Just as it is with the chair, tourism and travel is important to us. I am from Florida.

Oh, we are great at that.

Ultimately, in many rural communities across the Nation, access to broadband internet remains a major hurdle to retaining and attracting businesses and jobs.

We also know that broadband impacts the ability of distressed communities to attract jobs and businesses across a host of other industries, including the healthcare and energy sectors.

Just about every business these days needs access to broadband internet.

I want to make sure that efforts to achieve this goal do not harm existing rural broadband providers which are often small businesses themselves.

Mr. Alvord, how critical is broadband to farmers to keep up with the evolving agriculture industry?

UASI funding is particularly critical to the Congressional district I represent, Florida's 10th.

Rather than foreign radical extremism being the predominant threat, it is now domestic terrorism, a fact evidenced by the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

I look forward to working with the Biden administration to ensure that DHS preparedness grant programs continue to maintain robust funding.

President Trump consistently proposed significant cuts to the DHS preparedness grant programs that if enacted would have resulted in the tremendous loss of important homeland security capabilities.

These grant programs were created following one of the Nation's darkest moments, the September 11 terrorist attacks.

I think it is important that these grant programs and applying to receive funds is more accessible and 'user-friendly' for smaller or more rural emergency responder departments.