David Loebsack: “I thank the chair and ranking member for working to bring this bill to the floor today. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to see…”

“I thank the chair and ranking member for working to bring this bill to the floor today. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to see the RAY BAUM'S Act moving forward. This bill really is a good example of compromise. No one got everything that they wanted, but we worked together to find common ground. I think it represents what we need to be doing more of in Washington and in this body and what people and I want to see happen more often, namely, that Members of Congress come together in a bipartisan manner to reach a commonsense agreement. But today I come to the floor to talk about a piece of legislation, the Rural Wireless Access Act, which I was pleased to help introduce and incorporate into the larger FCC Reauthorization Act. I want to thank, in particular, my friend Mr. Costello for working with me on this bipartisan bill. I also want to thank Mrs. Blackburn, chair of the Communications and Technology Subcommittee, for helping to move this forward. This bill, which I introduced last year, would require the FCC to establish standards for collecting wireless coverage data. Everyone at some point has been driving through places in rural America that don't get wireless coverage. Unfortunately, the maps that the FCC uses to fix coverage gaps are often inadequate. Currently, the standards that define how wireless coverage is determined are not sufficient, meaning the coverage maps can be incomplete or inaccurate.…”