Political Quotes

“I rise today to discuss one small piece of this legislation which will make a big difference in rural States such as Montana. I am talking about the broadband expensing provision, which would encourage broadband providers to extend their networks to underserved areas, and to upgrade their networks to ``next-generation'' speeds so that they can deliver a full complement of voice, video and data services. We have been working on this legislation since 2000-- Senator Rockefeller, Senator Baucus, Senator Grassley, Senator Clinton. There are a lot of us who feel strongly about this issue. It has passed the Senate twice now, but, unfortunately, we have been unable to persuade our friends on the other side of the Capitol to support it. So I want to thank the Finance Committee for including it again in this bill, and I am going to push my colleagues on the House side to get behind it this time because it is very important. It is important for rural areas, for underserved inner city areas, for education, for health care, for energy savings, for a whole list of reasons. And I want to say this. It is fitting for this broadband incentive to be included in the FSC/ETI bill because this provision will have a big effect on international competitiveness.”