June 10, 2021 — Congresswoman Kim Schrier saw many elements of her proposed bill, the State Broadband Office Innovation Pilot, implemented by the U.S. Department of Commerce in its December spending bill.
Schrier said her bill was based on the Washington State Broadband Office’s success leveraging partnerships to improve internet access, speed and capacity.
One of the major concepts to the legislation is that the more infrastructure decisions happen locally, the better those decisions usually are.
“Then they should all put their best ideas on the table and learn from each other so that we do it right when we do it across the whole country.” explained Schrier, “We’ve got a big jobs package coming, a big infrastructure package. We want make sure we do it right and get all the best ideas on the table.”
The Department of Commerce will provide $1 billion for tribal lands and $288 million for state and local governments to develop broadband infrastructure.
https://www.kpq.com/schrier-proud-of-contribution-to-broadband-program/
