Subcommittee Chair Latta Opening Remarks on the FCC's Overreach and Burdensome Regulations 11.30.23

well good morning the subcommittee will come to order and the chair recognizes himself for five minutes for an opening statement and again uh welcome to today's oversight hearing of the Federal Communications Commission and commissioner Gomez uh congratulations he said it marks two months and so what a great way to start your beginning of your end of your second month being with us but U we appreciate all of the Commissioners for being with us today and also Commissioners car and Starks congratulations on your uh reconfirmations 5 months ago the FCC came before this committee and much has changed since then the commission finally has a Full Slate of Commissioners and moved aggressively to advance partisan initiative despite calls from this committee it can down a by partisan path since September chair waren has pursued a federal government takeover of the internet first the FCC plans to reclassify broadband as a common carrier under title two of the communications Act this effort is unnecessary and simply defies Logic the Obama administration's FCC attempted to impose these same regulations and made F false claims that without them the internet would be ruined however all those statements were unsubstantiated and Broadband networks continued to thrive under the current light touch regulatory framework in fact our networks have performed remarkably well they withstood The increased usage caused by the covid-19 pandemic and unlike Europe our Regulators did not have to ask sites to throttle or degrade their service providers were able to respond quickly to demand turning away from this success and adding additional regulations will make deployment more difficult this simply doesn't make sense second the FCC approved final rules on digital discrimination Congress directed the FCC to adopt rules to facilitate equal access to broadband internet service however the rules adopted the FCC go far beyond Congressional intent among those Provisions the rules adopt a dispar impact standard for determining violations rather than focusing on intentional discrimination the fcc's new rules permit the FCC to micromanage the Broadband industry to dictate to Providers where to build how much to charge and what kind of services to offer burdensome and expansive regulations like these will only discourage Broadband buildout at a time when Americans need it most I urge the FCC to reconsider these rules and adopt more narrow rules that are consistent with Congressional intent the FCC is most successful and it pursues bipartisan priorities for example the FCC recently voted to refresh the record on the 5G fund which will help support deployment of 5G in our rural areas 5G is critical for connectivity and you and use cases like PR Precision agriculture we need to make sure every American has access to broadband at home and on the go the Broadband landscape has changed significantly since the FCC adopted rules for the 5G Fund in 2020 so I appreciate that the FCC is revisiting these rules in light of recent events I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention that Congress needs to continue to work to restore the Spectrum auction Authority uh we've gone over a just about a year without it and we have to have it and finally I want end end on a note of caution the recent par partisan actions taken by this commission give me grave concern at a time when the government is preparing to Prov provide over $42 billion for Broadband deployment imposing in burdensome Federal Regulations riskless money going to waste We should strive every single day to be good stewards of Americans hard-earned tax dollars and again I want to thank all the Commissioners for being with us today I look forward to the discussion uh that we're going to have espe on these important issues they before the commission today and I now you