To watch Senator Capito’s questions, click here or the image above. 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday, U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, questioned administration nominees on their commitment to working in a transparent way to help bring needed funding to unserved and underserved areas of West Virginia for high-speed broadband deployment.

During Senator Capito’s round of questioning, Alan Davidson, nominee to be Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information, referred to Senator Capito’s long-time work and experience on delivering reliable broadband access to rural America, particularly West Virginia. He also referenced Senator Capito’s Capito Connect program and stated his interest in supporting the program if confirmed.

HIGHLIGHTS:

EXPECTING TRANSPARENCY ON BIPARTISAN INFRASTRUCURE BILL FUNDING: “From what I’ve heard from your testimony, transparency and cooperation of information in deployment of the [Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework] dollars is going to be one of the hallmarks of what you have already pledged.”

DEMANDING FEDERAL ACCOUNTABILITY: “As we know, ten or eleven years ago…$4 billion in grants was administered by the NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Administration). I can tell you in my state, as we know, it was not well deployed. In some ways…it was fraudulently deployed. It was not used judiciously and we ended up with all kinds of patch work and nothing to show. That to me is important in the accountability section.”

LEARNING LESSONS FROM THEPAST: “How are you going to be working with the state agencies and the broadband councils, because a lot of this money is going to flow, from my understanding, from the NTIA, into these state offices, and then deployed that way. What kind of assurances do you have, or can you give, or would you envision to be able to have the capacity both at your level, and at the state level to make sure these mistakes are not repeated?” 

UNSERVED VS. UNDERSERVED: “There has been a lot of discussion and disagreement on what does ‘unserved’ and ‘underserved’ really mean. Kind of keying off some of the discussion we’ve heard here earlier, if there is no take up, are they underserved? Or, if there is inadequate service, does that mean they are underserved or unserved?”

KEY TO CLOSING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE IN RURAL AMERICA: “I think these distinctions are exceedingly important in rural America, because that is where a lot of the unserved and underserved people are. Because, going that last mile is very difficult in certain circumstances. So, what kind of guardrails can you make to make sure we’re not ‘upping’ other people’s services in areas that already have service – making redundant services – but, making that unserved and underserved population, to close the digital divide, that key portion of these dollars?”

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