I know from our office's perspective, dealing with constituents who had medical emergencies after these hurricanes hit--and the limitations of communications because of the devastation on the networks--really prevented absolutely critical…

I think it is critically important purely for that perspective.

we would like so many people in our rural areas to be able to access medicine through a tele-connection.

For people in our state, a lack of affordable access to broadband continues to be a real and serious challenge.

Well, and it may be that as we further these conversations that Congress has to get involved, too, in identifying where we think investments should go and trying to help strike that balance with the industry.

If there is not good access to broadband, to connectivity... it is really a nonstarter for those folks.

the capacity to do telemedicine is increasingly important, as it is for people who live far away from providers.

the importance of being able to do that in a way and at a time that makes sense, given people's busy lives, is really increasingly important.

I think the time has come to treat this like the utility that it really is and address it that way.

Part of what we are dealing with here... is that there does seem to be this ongoing different understanding of the level of connectivity for people in so many parts of our state.

I will often have one conversation with providers and industry about the levels of connectivity and then I am out.

If the private sector cannot, for some reason, get to everywhere it needs to get, then the issue of whether municipalities should be somehow empowered to becomes another question.

I want to perhaps just say that we should commit to each other to continue this discussion and really drilldown on this issue.

Now, I am still evaluating the plan, but Commissioner, do you agree that direct spending is necessary to eliminate the Digital Divide and to make broadband truly ubiquitous?

I think the investment that we are talking about is really critical in any number of areas.

A number of us in the Senate are very concerned that there may be a rescinding or elimination of the E-Rate program and some restrictions on the other Universal Service programs.

We can solve this.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Ranking Member Cummings for yielding me time to speak about this important legislation to protect whistleblowers. Mr. Speaker, I share the concerns that were brought up yesterday in the Rules Committee and today on the…