Olympia Snowe: “I think it comes at an especially critical time for the Commerce Department.”

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.

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.

We would not have connectivity and all that it brings to our schools and libraries if it were not for E-Rate.

I just encourage all of us to think about children, about the problems they face, and about our responsibility to help them navigate their way through those waters.