On the recordJune 15, 2011
I want to say to the gentleman from Arizona, if I have time left over, I will yield you some. But you can also get your own 5 minutes if you want. Mr. Chairman, I oppose this. I want to start out by saying that the committee has taken a really close look at this over the years. And I wish you could see, from where you are sitting, better the saturation level of broadband access in the United States of America. That's in the blue. As you can see, the entire country is mostly blue according to this. But I would not want your eyes to just strain from there, so I will give you some numbers here: New Jersey, 100 percent penetration; Florida, 99.9 percent penetration; New York, 99.8 percent; Georgia, 99.4 percent; Arizona, 98.2 percent. This program is not necessary. And in a time when we're talking about saving money, we do not need to increase this account. The process is burdensome. We get lots of complaints from people who have had applications pending for a long time and they can't get their questions answered, or they get approved but they can't get their money. Their eligibility is too broad. And in many areas, it competes with private sector broadband service. Now, the IG report had a number of things that they found. They found that this rural broadband program granted loans of $103 million to 64 communities near large cities, including $45 million loans to 19 suburban subdivisions within a few miles of Houston, Texas. That's hardly the intent of the program.…
