Olympia Snowe: “We cannot and must not finance operating expenses with perpetual deficits.”

The E-Rate program has fundamentally transformed education in this country.

In closing, libraries are vital community technology hubs, and we simply cannot allow inadequate bandwidth to be the limiting factor for what our students and our nations can achieve.

I do want to acknowledge the bipartisan effort and support for the E-Rate Program by Chairman Rockefeller and Maine's original E-Rate champion, Olympia Snowe.

Due in no small part to the leadership of Senators Rockefeller and Snowe, the E-Rate program from its inception focused on providing high-capacity transmission services to libraries and schools.