Political Quotes

“I want to thank my colleague from Florida who has made some terrific comments regarding this legislation about the importance of oversight. I know my colleague from New Hampshire (Mr. Bass) has been very keenly involved in the oversight efforts as well. Let me just say, as chair of the Communications and Technology Subcommittee, that we will be doing oversight on how this program is working. We hear some reports that there have been problems getting access to fiber because of the earthquake in Japan that may have slowed build out. We understand that some of the smaller companies may have run into all kinds of problems working their way through rights-of-way issues that have delayed the build out of getting this broadband build out into many of our communities, especially those who don't have broadband today. So I think it's incumbent upon us, and I won't presume to speak for the minority, but I assume they would agree as well, we need to keep an eye on this just to see how is it working and what impediments are we running into, and are we going to see this broadband actually get built out as it was envisioned. The grants have been issued. The money is obligated, hasn't been spent. So it looks to me like we have two tasks here.…”