Transcripts For CSPAN3 Senate Hearing On Oversight Of FCC 20240712

That wraps up todays white house briefing. We now return to last Thursdays Senate commerce meeting on fcc oversight. The serenity they necertaint build at scale. Capital, talent is scarce. Innovation doesnt have to visit. The more difficult it is, the less likely we hare to get it. And its consistent, i would add, with three years of reforms we have made oven with great heat taken. They have been a proven concept for a regulatory approach. I think the reforms, the ones you championed in the steam line act, would have us close the Digital Divide. The period is a marked contrast from the prior eight years. We wasted a tremendous amount of time chasing around partisan little agendas, rather than focusing on what matters. I think this pandemic has pult Telecom Policy in a crucible. That is what we have to focus on. On closing the Digital Divide. That is where we have been the last three years and its paying off results. We have not raised the mission divide yet. And the u. S. Infrastructure held up better because of the investment that the private sector generated. Quickly. We have seen in south dakota, it will require low band, mid band and high band spectrums. The fcc feared up additional high band. But key to winning the race. Chairman, i appreciate the work often the c band action that will take place this year. Can you speak to the benefits getting it to market quickly . Absolutely. Because of the satellite officers have accepted relocation, it will be available two to four years sooner. That means that American Consumers will be ahead of the curve enjoying 5g services. One of the critical parts of the system. An america will be ahead of the curve con paired to other countries when they look to receive the advantage. Im very proud of the work we have done. Thanks in part to you and senator wicker. Thanks. All of you, for our service. Thank you, senator shotts. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you to the commissioners for being here. I want to start on a followup question, commissioner that huh had with commissioner rosenworseel. She said that 16 billion for broadband that is going to be deployed over the next ten years will be decided upon this october. And that it has a 40 error rate. Do you you an agree those are the facts . Those are not the facts. We first, with respect to 80 , that is the estimated cost to phase one areas. If the budget is not melt, the funds go to stage two. It will roll over in stage two. Secondly, the 38 shes talking about how nothing whatsoever to do with the unserved areas in phase one. Whats the number . In terms of the error rates . Yeah. Again, the error rate has to do with parentally served areas. Phase one is a different served area. We are talking about apples and oranges here. What is the error rate . I know you can go five minutes on your own. I want to make sure i get my questions in. You dont know what the error rate is. We are asking to you get better fidelity on what the error rate is. And the point we are making, measure twice, cut once. That this is a significant investment. That maybe its not 80 of the 16 billion, maybe its less than that. But its certainly a significant chunk. And certainly its an incomplete picture as we deploy billions and billions of dwlars. Commissioner, i want to give you a chance to respond here. Thank you for the question. Again, swhe have a policy that involves both speed and accuracy. That is how we should spend federal dollars. And i think the record reflects we dont have accurate data. We say 18 billion people dont have broadband . Other studies say its 14 billion or 162. We dont know enough to give out 80 of our funds in the next ten years in october. Thank you. Commissioner, i want to follow up on senator bloomenthals question, the definition of a classroom. We had a question about this. It seems to me, and i consulted lawyers about this, the definition of a classroom certainly could be captured on an online classroom. Im just wondering why you have chosen to interpret this in the middle of a pandemic, so narrowly, because the consequences are so dire here. Why not allow the erate dollars to be used to provide connectivity when they close. I share your frustration. Three months guy, the cares act, i urged congress for the authority in funding. I got it. I got it. You wanted a statue to make it clear. Now you have a student to interpret the existing statute that doesnt run on the law but provides more broadband. Do you have can i get a commitment you will relook at this and consider the bossiblety that you have a maybe a more narrow legal path. But a path nonetheless to get it done . Im always happy to look at new legal arguments about the issue. Okay, well send that in. Finally, the cares act appropriate reyated 42 million for telehealth. Why has hawaii, fld nd, montana and alaska not received an afloriaward at automobile . Thank you for the question. We have been applying county data from Johns Hopkins university. And we consider an area to be hard hit if the county where the lead applicant is in the 75th percentile. So the highest counties hold on. The only criteria youre using are current covid rates in the time you consider the application. I want to you know how absurd that is. Number one, obviously the virus moves across the country in unpredictable ways. You might be a highly impacted county one month and a low impact county the next month. The next thing, this is telehealth. This is about providing health care generally speaking. Not just covid related health care. And every single part of this entire country has been impacted as every single hospital was told to use telehealth for noncovid related services. On the idea that only a county hospital can be hit if it has a covid rate is based on nothing at all other than to one set of data. That is not the intention of the statue and that is not far to states and counties that have done a good job in managing this pandemic. Senator, i understand your frustration. Again, we adopted objective criteria that are flexible its not its an emerging hot spotd and they demonstrated that. If there are areas of hawaii that meet that criteria, let me know. We cannot just give it out on a whim. Im saying its not an objective criteria to tie it to a covid rate in a particular county. That is not what the statute is for. I want to you understand just because you are tied to one data set doesnt make it objective. We are relying on data. I got your talking point. Every heard the talking point. What im saying is what im saying is that what you need to do is consider the possibility that the sta chutute was not ab serving places with a high covid rate. If i didnt use objective cry tier yarks i would be criticized for picking winners and loser. We are dwroing to base it on the Expert Opinion to use the Johns Hopkins county data across the country and be flexible to meet the sirkss. I apologize to the chairman for exceeding my time. I will send a letter. Yeah, we will take other rounds and submit questions. Let me ask you, mr. Chairman, was this decision made administratively, by the commission . The hell health is by the commission. The criteria relies on the county data from Johns Hopkins university to reach the benchmark. If the commit will endulge me in a minute. I want to make sure, you are not proposing that the rdocs are postponed . Im proposing we consider the sheer number of dollars that are headed out the door. Lets calibrate so we have funds the next ten years to reach everybody. I think that should be our goal. Would you change the scheduled rdof . A way . I could support us having a rule digital student fund, fund in october. But i think giving out 80 of the funds for the next ten years before we have before we have better data is a mistake. I think we should identify how we can preserve some of the funds when we have better data. Leaving 20 for the next ten years is going to leaf communities behind. Chairman, do you understand the proposal that commissioner rosen yeah, the answer to the question is yes. That is the argument. We shouldnt do phase one until the maps are perfect. Thats not going to happen immediately. That is not going to happen in 2020. And people with that view should own it. We want to keep work on the wrong side of the Digital Divide. And number two, the distinction in phase one and two is false. If the budget is lower, they are lowered to phase two. And they can increase phase two to meet the circumstances. That is a decision for a future team to make. Why dont give you commissioner rosenworsel 20 seconds. Yeah, at the end of the day, i think you need to have speed and accuracy together. For two years, you told us to improve our broadband data and not give out funds until we know with clarity where people have service and where they dont. We have high error rates in the data we have. We have to make sure the bulk go out when we have accurate maps. See if you can supplement the answer. You have at least five minutes. Thank you. Thank you for being here. I want to talk about the topic of censorship. Its a difficult topic. Er believe its an incredibly important topic. We had been seeing in recent years and recent months and even recent weeks growing assertions of power from big tech. To sensor, to shadow ban to violence views with which they disagree. Just within the last two weeks, we saw google at the behest of a foreigned Foreign Advocacy Group tletden to the journistic outlets. The federalist was told the reason they faced the threat of being demonitized is because of comments in the comments section. And Third Party Users had put some as far as i know unidentifies comments that google found objectionable. That is not a policy that google applies and a quick search can show dozens of progressive journalistic outlets that have comment sections and all sorts of nasty things being said that are not facing the threat of demonatization. Youtube, that is owned by google. Any one of us to go on youtube kmentds right now and read a host of propane and racist and offense you offensive comments on youtube. If google is not applying that to its subsidiary and instead to the federalist to force them to demonitize now, they ended up pulling the comments section down. Because googles power is such that challenging the star chamber is almost impossible. Yesterday, we saw twitter decide to sensor and block a tweet from the president of the United States that said that an autonomous zone, a lawless autonomous zone, will not be allowed to be create fld washington, d. C. In if anyone attempts to do so, Law Enforcement will stop them. Google deemed the president pledging to protect public safety, and twitter deemed that abusive and so put a content block on it. Something else, there is an utter lack of transparency. If one asked i have asked represe representatives from google, facebook, youtube, how many posts are you blocking . How many posts are you reducing the number of people who see it . They are not answering. There are zero data that exists and comparative blocking, bias. I have asked the simple, a simple question, we have two Major Political parties. I have asked, how many posts from republican candidates for sfigs have you blocked in how many poegss from Democratic Candidates do you block . We know that twitter blocked my colleague senator blackburn. A sitting member of the house running for senate, and twitter deemed her launch video unacceptable. They refuse to answer the questions. They then respond well, there are no data shows the bias. Because the only source of the data is the black box of their internal files. No one has that information but google and facebook and youtube and twitter. Much like the individual who kills his parents and pleads mercy of the court because hes an orphan, they refuse to answer the questions. The fcc has recently been brought districtly in the issue with an executive order from the penalty. I understand from comments earlier, some of you have concerns with Legal Authority to address this. This is a topic i have been deeply engaged in in a long time. And i will readily admit part of it is complicated. It cuts across so many lines it doesnt fit neatly in one silo. It doesnt fit legally in dcc or Civil Division or protection. It cuttings across all the lines. So i think our federal government is training to figure out how to address this. I will start with just a question to each of you. Do you agree that it is a problem that a handful of billions have unfettered power to silence speech to which they disagree with no transparency and accountability . Yes. What i agree with you in. The lack of transparency, and also that social media is frustrating. But when it comes to the First Amendment, its there to protect all forms of media from government. Not to protect all forms of government from all forms of media. I suggest you try to revisit this law. As you said, it is complicated. Yeah, i believe the tra transparency is horrible. The prodigy and compuserve have long since shred their cloths. Twitter, facebook, google, they have more control over free speech than any other institution. This is immense concentration of power, and those of us in government cant look at and sit on our hands and do nothing. That is why you are seeing bipart s bipartisan call to take action. I think we have responsibility of the fcc to updating section 230. I think the federal trade commission has to look at the trade practice tigss and the trust issues. Thank you for the question, senator. I do agree this is a Cross Sectional issue. There are a lot of complications and a lot of heavy issues. What i would focus on is the first ameantment, which prohibits the government from focusing on the speech of these companies. But what i also really would like to fixate an here, what we really need to do to make sure this does not cloud our elections, i have encouraged to bring the executive order to the fcc as quickly as possible so that we can have a vote. I am happy to engage that with colleagues. But so that this isnt overhang and have a dark cloud on the online speech. My time has expired. Let me make a quick observation. I look forward to working with you. The need for transparency. If the fcc were able to do one thing and simply provide real transparency, so the American People can see how many people are being silenced, how many people are being shadow banned, who and what the relative ratios are. That would transform the ability to solve the problem. So transparency would be very valuable. Thank you so much, senator cruz. I apologize for my absence. The issues are very important. I made in my opening state a comment about the hall mark gap. I think commissioner, you know because you visited washington state, you look at the esm and the edge and i can see you are a little shocked when you saw the numbers. You were thinking, wait, in washington yeah, that is true. In washington, we can have a gap. Following up on what my snow kbol league brought up, how do you you a dress the major what with the authority you have. We have authority now so all the nations and schools every student connected at home. You have 50 million kids from the classroom. Lets use the program to meet to the you mentioned, the classrooms are online nism lets note get tired up. Lets figure out how to help sufficients so no child is left online. De123450i679 and i know that you are leading on a fleesms and make sthaur every kid 12k3w4re678 and i couldnt agree more clearly, the inequity for not having the Broadband Access for education is one of them. So i can say the same thing. I think commissioner oreilly, you know, i know the chairmans got a tough job. He has to fit all the people in. Last week, we had man, too many people on the panel to get the ti time and questions in. So i will give you a question today. Last year, the International Community rejected the fccs inadequate whether spectrum is on the band. Instead, they adoptded one becaused on sound silence and med sflinl and what is the fcc doing now to ensure that domestic wire rls companies will comply with them . And will you work with nasa and noaa to know that the protections of interappearance are improeed. I work with federal agencies. We have work proceedings. We transferred to the order. Day take a number of years. It takes a little bit of time to put it before us. We were loading on a frooefls and little take a little time bmpl they are adprapted. So you will 1245er78 from the issues we will put it in the item and have an opportunity to consider it at that time. That was the position of the yith and they agreed to it. Commissioner, can i ask you about this and the issue. Why not go back. If so many people are involved now and saying hold up, timeout, you know, this is like all of these issues fighting around. I mean, should isnt we listen to those International Leaders and shouldnt we look and say, wait, lets look at this . To me, aviation safety is critical. It bothers me to think that the system will be hampered if that is not addressed. A lot there. The first is the fesmt and put them in your policy. Py sflim and we have to do that. Because i believe they have the force of law, we should do it in short order. And i respect deeply the work of the fccs inge nears. So many adjustments and changes have been made over time. A 3re678 and i want to respect you and your point. There is a lot of 234r0i67 and the gps. So i think dlantss noems and the charpt was interested zblerks and that would certainly be something i support because we have to iron this stuff out. Fp we literally want to have a 5g future. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, i see my time has expired. I dont know if lotus started. It has not. Chairman thank you very much. Commissioners, thank you for being here. I have a view that we have a solid and impressive fcc. And i appreciate all five of you. Particularly, i believe the fcc is enhonsed by the presence of two of my colleagues from kansas. Chairman, let me start with you. Appropriations process, fsgg, the money for the we take our over site respontsibilities seriously. You have been in front of the Sub Committee fesmt and what are the things i understand, that your yes, maam and with specific information on specific available brond band and efforts. I want to hear from you that this information will be provided to the Sub Committee as soon as poss b8, quickly, as we begin the deliberations. We continue the deliberations about appropriations about the ensuing year. And i want to make certain that we have that information and there can be no complaint that the fcc hasnt pull filled the responsibilities to provide such information. Can you commit to me . Yeah, senator. I know the staff had briefers with the staff and will provide you further information as needed as soon as we possibly can. I know the director is working on that particular issue that you raised in your question. Thank you very much. Chairman pie. Last week, we discussed the fcc keep america connected pledge. The pledge is worth nearly 800 broadband providers. I had sense then conversations with a number of kansas providers. The i think the expectation is that the covid19 consequences are lingers longer than perhaps experted. And the amount of resources the companies are foregoing from their customers is increasing. Based upon your conversations with providers, do you have suggestions for any future legislative package, does the fcc have recommendations for marketing relief for the providers who are foregoing the payments from customers. Are there sizes that need to be priori prioritized. And is there a preferred method in distributing the federal funding . Should federal support be provided to the consumer or provider . Thank you for the question. Obviously that is a really important topic and a complex one. If its okay, i would like to follow up with you and your team and committee. But in high level, you put the finger on the problem. And smaller providers in particular, i would say those below 2 million subscribers, have a great deal of cost that is disproportionate to them. And we want to ensure that those consumers with the small procedure viders also have seamless service. What actually what the vehicle looks like. I think its important to address it as soon as possible because they continue to rely on connectivity in the dan demic. He will me see if any commissioners have anything they would like to respond to that question. I would just say they agree with the chairman on this one. I think that legislation is porntd, its timely, and i hope this committee in congress acts. Anyone else . Let me highlight the fccs announcement yesterday. Im a sponsor with another member of the committee, senator gardner of a suicide hot line. Let me express gratitude to the fcc for the efforts you rurnd taking. Would would any of you care to speak to the importance of the transition deadline of july 16th. Applicable to the carriers. And based on your conversations with industries, are you expecting any challenges to get us to that point on that date . Meeting the deadline . Senator, i just circulated the order with my colleagues yesterday. But based on the record, we believe that the implementation, we have thousands of things that need to be reconfigured, replaced. We need to match both the priority of the issue, i mentioned is reaching epidemic levels and i wish it could be sooner. We believe that twoyear transition period is the most appropriate one. You this. I appreciate your attention to the issue. I service the chair of the veterans committee. This an important issue for all americans and i understand mr. Chairman that im giving back no time. Senator, you are recognized. Madame chair and Ranking Member cantwell, i want to thank all the members of the committee the commission for being here today. The Public Health crisis and the resulting economic crisis called by covid19 has put a spotlight on the work do you to connect americans. Broadband service is more essential than others for new mexicans to stay connected to school, friends and family. And the control in protecting free speech is important as protestors continue to call for justice reform. Chairman pie, as part of your confirmation hearing in july of 2017, you pledged to this committee you could speak out if they were under attack. You also pledged to exercise your authority. As chairman of the fcc to reck late the media in an impartial manner free of white house political pressure. Setting aside section 230, 230 debate, we are talking about it because the president is engaged in high profile feuds with social media companies. In light of the president s repeated threats to use government power against those he deems enemies of the people, this looks like a bad faith attempt to retaliate the kr criticism. There are too many journalists that are physically assaulted and detained as they try to cover the story of black lives matter protests. There are dozens and dozens of documented assaults by Law Enforcement by journalists. If there is any time to speak up, it is now. Chairman, will you take it as an opportunity to reassure you will not buckle the white house demands on section 230 and to speak out in press freedom to cover the protests . Senator, not only do i reaffirm the commitment i made several years ago, but i have done that in the last couple weeks, including standing up for local broadcasters, and i rejected the calls of some who say that a television bros shoulder have a license yanked because of the political viewpoint. So the answer to your question ultimately is yes. Commissioner starks, and commissioner rosenworsel, in times of crisis like this, we see how important local journalism is. Its how people stay informed in situations to keep their families and the communefies safe. What more cust congress and the fcc do to bprotect the First Amendment and increase support of journalism . Yeah, thank you for the question, senator. I cannot agree more. We talk about the black lives matter rallies. The civil rights movements i see right now. I agree that its important that we continue to protect all of the journalists. To your point, section 230, i do see a clear intention to influence social media companies, and the political issues in the up coming election cycle. News is really important. It tells us what we need to know about our lives, the community and our country. And i think that the economic pressures on low media are skuntd right snow and the fcc needs to spend time looking through rules to identify how we can sustain local media because we need it. Its essential for the democracy and the communities. Thank you, and i want to align myself with my colleagues, and when it comes to the e rate in expanding access. I also want to specifically thank the commissioner for our work to close the home work gap improve wifi access to students. Commissioner, i have a bipartisan bill that would make it eligibler on erate. You sate that the fcc has the authority now to do something similar. But you believe such a legislative approach will help close the home work gap in under served areas and you believe the senate this consider such a bill . Yeah, we are headed in the next school year, and we dont know what it looks like. I say that professionally and as a parent of Young Children to make sure everybody student to get online and go to class. We dont want anyone locked out of a virtual classroom. Thank you. Madame schar chair . I want to womelcome all of y. Its been a bhil since we had you all in front of us. I was sitting here thinking and commissioner starks, you have not had the opportunity to hear me opine about the browser act, and give consumers protection on the virtual view and put in guardrails, to be able to opt in, to opt out. Fp we had done that, we wouldnt be where we are today, with the discussions on section 230 and the need for greater transparency. Sbtd need for greater competition. So it shows the cost of not taking action. And not having congressional action. So lets hope that now, we with reforming section 230. Lets see, chairman pie, theres been talk about the president s executive order. Lets go to that. Are you planning a comment process pursuant to this order . Senator, per the order, the department of commerce is supposed to file a petition for rule making with the fcc if and when that happens. Do you plan to follow through that that process . Absolutely. That sounds great. Let oes move on to the telehealth issue. I want to the thank you all for the work that you have put in to that. As we discussed when i was in the house, it was considered a luxury and a convenience. What we found out in covid it was something that was a necessity, and people to people who were suffering and had complex medical condition. Thank you for the attention you have put on that. And lets go to the broadband process in expanding broad pand, which is vital. I agree with every comment you have said about the necessity for that. And i agree, talking anltd the 6409 rules and beginning to relax in move things out of the way and senator baldwin and i have the exchange act. That is something that we want to see move forward, but spectrum is part of this also. So commissioner riley, you had the lead on this and we appreciate the outreach on this. Talk to me about what is on the horizon as we look at this, recooping it, dod has someone. We know that other ajen zips has got to do the inventory so that we can recoup and we can auction. Speak to that. We have done work in high bands and mid bonds. You are moving forward. Its the future part and what is the next five years look like. And the three, the 3. 1. 55, that is hotly contested and i have spend time trying to talk to manufactures and what else can we con fert for commercial purposes . How can we reclaim the spectrum, and the Central Agencies using it today . Commissioner, i think you wanted to comment . No, i agree with my colleague. We need to have more air ways to fuel the future. Right now, we have different ent tips to what we come pain and what we cant. We need a better way in the future msmgts we have to value existing federal asets and figure out how to create structured incentives. They seek gain and not just loss from the reallocation . Well, i think that as we look at the ndaa, and last year with the ndaa, we had next 214 and we discussed some on this and finding a way to make the spectrum available will be important. Commissioner, i want to come back to you on the issue of giving people to the ability to air their grievances against big tech. One of the reasons we refer to it as big tech, these are no longer infant companies. They are not babies. They have grown up. They are some of the biggest that are there and the censorship that we see taking place in the virtual space is absolutely unprecedented. So what i continue to hear from people is they want to see some kind of Public Comment period. So that there is a way to air those grievances. And senator cruise got on this issue a little bit. But i want to you speak to that, the important of sporting a process where the fcc can have a notice of inquire and allow the public to comment on what they experience at the bends of big tech. Thank you, senator. Thank you for your leadership on the issues. I think its time for the issues in government to look for to create accountability for the decisions we are seeing across big tech. From google to fwiter. I will row fehr to you a public stamtd on the website. We are impartial, and believe strongly in impartialty. And its hard to read the words with a straight face. A lot of people are calling for acountability. I welcome the president s executive order. I think we should move forward, and whether we at the fcc should engage in section 230 reforms. I field back. Senator peters, you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you, senator, for the recognition, and thank you for your testimony today. Commissioner starks, i have read an oped that you have published, brond band access is a civil right that many cant afford to lose but many cant afford to have. Its a very powerful oped. It focuses on the need that everybody, no matter where you are, where you live, you need to are access to broadband in the digital world. In detroit, 9d out of ten students dont have access to tablets, nine out of ten. This is a time during the covid crisis when our schools shutdown and moved to online instruction and yet students simply had no opportunity whatsoever to be able to avail themselves of that. So, a few more of the questions. Perhaps, you could just tell us a little bit about how do we approach this in an equitable fashion. Zip code should not matter. And right now its those zip codes of communities of color that really matters. How do we change that . I could not agree more. Thank you so much for your leadership. I appreciate it deeply. I have done a Virtual Event that was in detroit and i was shocked to hear the statistics that youre talking about e senator. And its deeply disturbing that when youre talking about 90 of the students that are in detroit are without tablets, are without home connectivity. One thing we havent talked about here is e rate is basically designed to offer support for schools for students with a higher percent on free lunch. When youre talking about households on those head start breakfasts, those are the families that are disconnected and the students that e rate needs to reach. Affordability i think is an integral part of this, making sure that we have connections that are affordable for millions of struggling families right now, making sure that we have something that is 10, 1 is dollar ultimately. There are a lot of legislative proposals that i think deserve serious merit. The last thing i would mention is lifeline. Our Lifeline Program is going to need to meet the day and thats going to be expanding the data, expanding the voice, expanding the noufb dollars. Something i would focus on is that because lifeline is so seriously undersubscribed, about 20 of people eligible for lifeline are subscribers. Over 74 senators wrote a letter saying that the federal government should use its advertising dollars to make sure that local broadcasters who are hurting right now can have some of the advertising dollars that theyre losing. I think it makes some good sense for us to have lifeline advertised, given its low subscribership, to some of these local broadcasters. I think its a slam dunk, win win scenario. I appreciate your leadership and focus and passion on it. As i look at this issue, we need to think about ownership of broadcast assets who are owns these facilities and having diversity in ownership tends to lead to broader reach as well. I introduced the expanding broadcast Ownership Opportunities act to make sure folks of color have a seat at the table which was critically important in my mind. Sta tis uks are striking as well. Women make up less than 6 plkt of broadcast tv own rs and minorities account for less than 3 . So, my bill would establish the fccs Tax Certificate Program which incentivizes the sell of broadcast stations to socially disadvantaged individuals. My question to you, commissioner, is how would this help diversify the industry, and what needs to be done to help bring back this Important Program . Thank you for the question, senator. I could not foot stomp that legislation more. When you look at the numbers on the Media Diversity and its important from the ownership to whos in front of the camera, who is in the news room. The fact of the matter is in our latest report we issued in february, it covers data from 2017, so in that sense its a bit stale. The data is trending in the wrong direction in 2015. Asian ownership is down, latino ownership is down, women ownership is down from 7. 4 down to 5. 3 despite the fact we know there are over 50 of our population. The fact of the matter is out of the 1,400 full power tv stations, 12 of them are owned by africanamericans. What that means is if you are rounding that number, you would round it down to 0 . That is unacceptable in this day and in this time. Access to capital, access to opportunities, all of these are important. The tax incentive proposal that you have is the biggest shot in the arm that i see that we can take on this run. I appreciate it. Thank you. My time is up. Senator gardner is up to bat next. Thank you, chairman. And thank you to the panelists for your opportunity to the opportunity to testify today. Colorado has one of the highest suicide rates in the country. We lose a coloradan once every seven hours to suicide and the covid19 pandemic has exacerbated that problem. For the months of march and april, 2020, calls to our crisis line spiked 48 compared to last year. And a significant number of those calls were related to the global pandemic. We have to ensure that people in this crisis have the resources they need for such an emergency and such emergency situations that they can access those resources easily to help provide them when they are at their greatest need. So, i was pleased to see chairman pais announcement yesterday. I thank you very much chairman pai that the commission will be voting on the designation and implementation of 988 to replace the 10digit suicide hotline. Thats commendable and it will save countless lives. Senator bolder and i have been working as well with the house counterparts, congressman stuart, congressman molten to put 988 into law. It does not Absolve Congress of reduced funding, but it ensures that any extra dollars raised for 988 services go toward that intended purpose. Lastly, we commissioner report on services for communities most at risk of Suicidal Ideation including lgbtq youth who face a suicide contemplation rate that is four times higher than that of their peers. My office consulted with the fcc with feedback before this committee passed legislation unanimously and we recently passed the bill through the full Senate Unanimously as well. I would like to go through each of you briefly and ask a yes or no question beginning with chairman pai. Do you agree with all 100 senators that this is critical legislation and that it compliments the work youre doing at the commission and should be swiftly pass by the house of representatives to help save lives. Ill begin with you, commissioner pai, and go down the line. Yes, senator. Thank you for your leadership on this issue. Great. Commissioner rosen morsel. The answer is yes. Commissioner oreilly. Yes. Commissioner carr. Yes. And thank you for your work. Commissioner starks. I agree, yes. This is tremendous work and i amp i dont know it. Once implementation of 988 is live, whats the commission hads plan to ensure that Public Education about this new number is clear and widespread . Appreciate the question, senator. In the first instance Public Education will be the responsibility of agencies such as hhs and Veterans Department agencies and others. But i can assure you that we will certainly use this pulpit to increase awareness and were doing that now in consultation with other sister agencies and private sector organizations like the trevor project, the National Council on Behavioral Health and others. Thank you. For all commissioners, 5g is the next wave in economic activity. Colorado plays a leading role in these efforts including major advancements, research and Development Underway in collins, engelwood and elsewhere along the front range. In addition to the o ran and networks is the future is bright. But despite all this good news, some have suggested and it continues to rise in the conversation again that in order to stay competitive with china we mush nationalize our 5g network or select a Single Company to operate it. I would like to ask another simple yes or no question to each of you. Do you support such a plan to either nationalize our 5g network or select a Single Company to operate it . Chairman pai, i begin with you. No. Chairman rosenworcel. No, i do not, senator. Chairman oreilly. No, i completely oppose it. Commissioner carr. Know. Commissioner starks. I strongly agree, no. Thank you for that. I think a agree with your answers. Commissioner carr, last week i spoke with small Telecommunications Providers in colorado, did a zoom call with them who mentioned they are struggling to find adequate personal protective equipment to safely conduct house calls to perform maintenance and continue construction projects. We have to ensure our hospitals and medical providers on the front line of covid19 have adequate ppe first and foremost obviously but its important not to forget the Small Businesses as we continue to reopen the economy. Have you heard about similar concerns to this on ppe in your conversations with telecommunication providers . And if so, what work can congress and the fcc be doing to ensure providers have access to ppe to keep coloradans protected . Thank you for that question. I spent a lot of time with americas during this pandemic and ive heard concerns principally early on in the pandemic. I think some of those issues are being worked out. As a country weve ramped up our supply of ppe but i look forward to working with you and your colleagues to ensure we get this right. Thank you. We need to, wo on it. It was something that the number of rural cooperatives bruought o my attention. Thank you to your commissioners and thank you for your work on 988. Thank you, senator gardner. Senator baldwin. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I really appreciate all of the commissioners joining us here today and for your service. I want to dove tail on the remarks of senator gardner just now on the threedigit number to access Suicide Lifeline Services and the Veterans Crisis line. It was a pleasure to work with my colleague, senator gardner, on this, namely making it easier for americans in crisis to get the help they need by creating that three of had digit number, 988, for crisis services. Last month as we noted, the full Senate Passed our bill. And i urge my house colleagues to pass it as soon as possible. But chairman pai, thank you for acknowledging in your testimony the importance of this issue. We just know that the crisis has been made even more heightened due to covid19. The pandemic and its economic consequences are placing enormous stresses on Americans Health both physical and mental and weve seen tremendous increase by way of those seeking help. There was nearly a 900 increase in calls to hhss disaster distress helpline compared to the prior march. And so, i hope that we all can move forward expeditiously. And im glad to see continued progress on the issue at the fcc, looking forward to working with the commissioners to get this done. Id like to now turn to another critical support for americans in need, another lifeline in fact, and that is the universal Services Fund Lifeline Program. It plays a Critical Role in keeping lowincome americans, including millions of seniors and veterans connected. The lifeline is all the more important in the current environment. On the one hand, American Families are relying more than ever on connectivity to work, learn and get medical help and stay in touch with friends and family. And on the other hand, many of those families are facing unemployment and other hardships, making that nowcritical Broadband Service unaffordable. Commissioner rosenworcel, you talked about this in your opening statement. Ill ask commissioner starks also because you did too. How do we get these individuals connected to lifeline, and what steps do we need to take to strengthen this program to meet the growing needs . Such a good question, senator. Listen, lifeline was started during the Reagan Administration when most communications involved a jack in the wall, and it was last updated during the Bush Administration after hurricane katrina. We saw there was a disaster and expanded it. I think we have a crisis right now too. And we have to figure out how to keep more americans connected, and weve got to use lifeline to do it. Weve got to remake it from top to bottom. Weve got to reconsider who is eligible. We have to reconsider what services we support. And then we have to do something along the lines that commissioner starks spoke about which is weve got to double out our outreach so that every interaction with Public Services we make available this service, so everyone gets a fair shot at staying connected in this crisis. Yes, thank you, senator. Lifeline is such an undersubscribed benefit that we do need to increase advertising. We do need to increase, again i think its a common sense idea that the fcc we know that s. N. A. P. Applications because of Food Insecurity has skyrocketed during this pandemic. The fact of the matter is that if you are eligible for s. N. A. P. , if you are a new s. N. A. P. Applicant, you are also eligible for lifeline. So, we have to have an mou in place where if you start to get s. N. A. P. Benefits, you should also be told you are eligible for a lifeline phone either follow up via email or direct mail in, something that makes people aware of this program. The fact of the matter is we have million of struggling americans right now. And if they come knocking on one door, they shouldnt have to knock on each door in order to get the help they need. I think there are also very administrative things we need to do. The lifeline verifier has been bogged down. The fact of the matter is that only 13 states are automatically connecting applicants through s. N. A. P. We have to do better on that because the manual review for lifeline applications is not good, and the error rate is extremely high. And then you have people that are more vulnerable that dont get the benefit they need. There are a lot of othings from top to bottom that we need to do better on lifeline, and millions of americans are counting on this. Thank you. Senator capito. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank all of you for your service, and thank you for being here today. We know that the fcc has played a Critical Role in addressing the critical needs we talked about today, certainly during covid. Its been essential some of the things weve learned that are impacted by the decisions youve made. Looking forward, our largest opportunity ive heard a lot of conversation about it, obviously is the ar doff program which will provide funding. West virginia has over 128,000 eligible locations. I heard you mention West Virginia in one of your answers, mr. Chairman. So, a appreciate that in your visits to West Virginia. Its imperative that as many census blocks are eligible for this funding as possible. And im concerns about this. So, i would ask you, mr. Chairman, as youre looking at the process of the challenges that have been made on certain census blocks and where the distribution of the money is going to be, its important we do it effectively and efficiently. As you continue to look at this auction process, will you commit to scrutinizing the challenges in the process . Yes, senator, we will. Are you in the midst of doing that now . When do you expect you will im sure its a revolving decision. Yes, it is an ongoing process, but i can tell you the list of eligible areas is scheduled to be published by july 1st which is when the short Application Window opens. We should have answers on this soon. Thank you. One of the areas ive been concerned about in past programs is transparency and accountability of actual delivery of whats been promised. How do you expect under this increased auction aimed at Rural America, how are we going to get better at the transparency and accountability of this . Critical question. All the taxpayer money in the world doesnt make a difference in the provider who is get it dont use it appropriately. Thats why for this auction, winning bidders will have to enter geocoded locations where they have provided employments into whats called the hub, the high cost broadband system. Theyll verify it to ensure theyve done what they said theyll do. Later on the networks will be subject to drive testing and rigorous speed and latency verification. If they fail on any of these scores, what happens is the providers will have support withheld. They may have to pay support back and may face enforcement action because we want to make sure those 128,000 locations in West Virginia, places like haven springs and clay, they deserve funding and deployment. I would encourage enforcement because we can say were going to do things but if we dont enforce it, its a toothless enforcement mechanism. Commissioner oreilly, i want to thank you for working with us in addressing the diversion of the 911 fees. I know its been an issue that West Virginia was labelled as a fee diverter and it was impacting our abilities to have these issues resolved. So, we are now eligible and muchneeded next generation 911 funding. So, i just wanted to thank you personally for that. Commissioner carr, you came to West Virginia with the connected care initiative. Boy, if we had known then, you know, where we are now, its an amazing i mean, West Virginia University Just got a grant to be able to expand their Telehealth Services. So, heres what im concerned about. I dont want to see us do the same thing we do with emrs. Weve got a telehealth initial tif thats going across the country but we dont have the ability for all of our Health Providers to be able to be on the same page. Do you imagine that through connected care and other initiatives that your going to be able to have really broadbased i dont want to say regulations, but best practices so that we dont come back in five years and go thats great but the radiologists cant talk to the card yolgss, rural cant talk to urban. How do you see that playing out through your initiative . Senator, thank you so much on your leadership on telehealth. When i joined you last summer in f with wells fargo, thats whe we rolled out our proposal that turned into this covid19 he will health program. So, its great we were out there doing the legwork thats paid off. They used the telestroke initiative on it wasnt a fake person, a real person, and actually had great results. Thats wonderful to see. I think West Virginia facilities have received over 2 million, already more money than we have to process. I think theres lessons to learn, perhaps the ones you tagged already. Were going to have a threeyear pilot thats going to run after the emergency covid does. Theres going to be lessons to carry over from that. Frankly i think the government has done a great job. If you look at what hhs has done in terms of updating some of the licensing, reimbursement issues, i think those are gains that we need to maintain as we power out of this covid19 pandemic because i think connectivity and the telehealth is the future. Just anecdotely in talking with folks who have had telehealth visits both on the provider side and on the patient side, they seem to really like it, the convenience of it, the ability to be more efficient. And its not going to work in every instance obviously. And so i think really the face of medicine is going to change through this and i look forward to working with you on this and thank you. Senator duckworth. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Sorry, i was on mute. Thank you for holding this important oversight hearing and i want to start by thanking each of the commissioners for your previous commitments before this committee to combat unreasonable phone rates for inmates and their families. By characterizing the fcc existing authority, something they still need to do. In the interest of time, please raise your hand if you still believe that more should be done to address unjust and unreasonable phone rates at incarceration and detention facilities in the United States. Mr. Chairman, kwoul have to take a look for me because i cant see. There we go. Everybodys got their hands up. Wonderful. Thank you. Just to be clear, anyone who thinks adequately tackled this issue, please speak up now. All right. Thank you. Im glad to see that each of you agree that more can be done and more should be done. However im deeply disappointed by the fccs lack of action. I do understand there is an opportunity for legislation which i am still working on. I am not aware of any major action taken by the commission over the past three years to address this issue. Commissioner rosenworcel,s did i miss anything . No, senator, you did not. We need your legislation to help us on interstate rates. When it comes to interstate rates, we have a crisis. A single phone call to someone whos incarcerated typically cost as much as you and i pay for a monthly unlimited plan. Thats not fair. Thats not right. It harms the families of the incarcerated. And especially during this crisis when visits are limited and so much communication is cut off. The fcc should be far more creative when it comes to rate caps, ancillary fees, and site commissions. We should be doing everything we can to lower the rates and make them fair and just because thats what the law requires. Thank you. Chairman pai, as this hearing has made clear, i would like to move on to the gps. As this hearing has made clear, theres a tendency for the debate to get bogged down in the weeds. I fear were at risk of losing sight of the forest for the trees. When i examined the la gadot issue, the primary issue to me is why is nobody pushing for approval other than la gadot. It would be significant in any shape or form as a 5g solution yet there does appear to be consensus among stakeholders including the department of defense and transportation that the proposed network threatens gps. Even the fcc noted in paragraph 91 of the order and i quote, our analysis should not be construed to say theres no potential for harmful device in operation or in the marketplace. Indeed testing shows there is potential for harmful interference to some devices, particularly High Precision devices. End quote. I understand your frustration that the fcc sought comment four times over two years and dod did not send a comment for the first four times. You will not find a more sympathetic audience than me over dods pace in responding to information for members of congress. However, it does not change the redwral, dod is strongly opposed to the fcc order. The department of transportation testified to this very committee following, they said i regret to say in this case i believe that physics stand between the people good will. Do not see a way in which anything approaching the proposal can succeed. So, chairman pai, recognizing that the fcc is recognizing do petitions requesting that the fix reconsider that le gadot order, why wouldnt the fixing reconsider the order . Isnt the point of the process to enable fcc to deal with controversial orders where there are disputes over the record, new information continues to emerge . The cost could be enormous and these costs could be passed on to consumers. Thank you for the question about the unanimous bipartisan decision. This issue has been pending for over a decade. In 2003, the fcc granted terrestrial authority to companies. In 2010 this issue was teed up and for the last ten years the agency has been considering whether the rules should be. Based on the engineering and facts in the record and that alone the fixing aziddecided to approve. Even though its gps that was bleeding over into the spectrum, a stock buzzer to ensure that any deployments occurring or that have occurred will not cause interference to gps, the replacement and removal of gimt. All these conditions were imposed because we wanted to balance the necessary interest allowing this company to move forward as the fcc granted authority to do. Based on the facts of the record, we made a decision, a decision i would add was shared with federal agencies over half a year ago to enable them to give feedback to us based on the facts that they sought in the record. Weve had a very open door. This process has gone on long enough and we made a decision based on the facts and the law and i will defend this decision in any forum around the country. I am out of time and i yield back, mr. Chairman. Thank you so much, senator duckworth. Thanks to all of you for being here. It was fantastic by the way. I liked the polling. That sounds like fun. Maybe for a future hearing, i will employ that technique. Also given me ideas on other commissions. Maybe next time we have the spring court in front are of the Judiciary Committee we can try the same thing. Im not sure theyll love it. I want to thank you. A few weeks ago, several colleagues of mine and i send you a letter asking questions about the issue and the commissions decision to approve the spectrum licensed modification for lagado. You responded and provided a number of very helpful answers to my technical questions. And without objection, that will be entered into the record for todays hearing. Thank you, senator. Chairman pai, in a recently disclosed email, there was an official at the department of defense who acknowledged that the department of defense has not relied on the gps l 1 ban for years and the department of defense uses the l2 signal which is not close to is somewhat far away from the l1 band. If its true that the department of defense is relying on the l2 signal, then why is it that the department of defense argues that lagado will cause interference with the dods gps systems . Very good question, senator, one thats more appropriately pointed to the department of defense. Our determination was starting at 59, 69 megahertz would not cause interference to any of the gps spectrum, especially lower in the band which is where the signal comes from. If thats the case, if the military in fact operates on the l2 signal and not the l1 signal, then is interference from the lagado bands even possible . Senator, we dont believe it is likely, but to be sure thats why we impose very strict conditions. We easily could have rubber stamped this application and said we dont think theres engineering case at all, but to make sure we protect hyperreceives and others, we incorporated those conditions. Thats why im confident we made a decision based on sound engineering as opposed to fear mongering weve heard. Theyre how far away from the l2 . Its 23 megahertz up to l1. Its a significant more than that to get to l2. I cant remember if its 33 or more. But for context for context in the 600 megahertz incentive auction we created 3 megahertz white guard band to protect from broadcasters. Were talking about a guard band here that is almost 8 time as large to protect against the l1 signal, let alone the l2. Thats helpful. Thank you. And mr. Chairman, its my understanding that the National Advanced spectrum and Communications Test network i keep wanting to figure out a pronounce able acronym for that. It doesnt sound very good. But it provides testing and modeling and analysis necessary to inform spectrum policy and that its a joint effort that involves a bunch of federal agencies including nist, ntia, dod, nasa, nsf, and noaa. Is there any evidence that it produces biased results . Not at all because some of the agencies are a member of that group. And did this group nasctn, study the impact of the lpe signals in lagado spectrum on gps devices . They did, yes. And were dod comments heard and studied in this particular instance . I have no reason to think that they were not. Ive seen arguments that the commissions decision would somehow impact taxpayer dollars because the department of defense as a result of the decision would be tasked with updating its Government Systems to comply. Now, in the event that there is harmful interference, my understanding is that lagado is on the hook for replacing the affected government receivers. Chairman pai, did that issue get addressed in the fccs order . It did, senator. We imposed a condition on lagado to remedy any of those types of situations that could include for example prrks replacement of High Precision. Were talking about significant distance away from operations. I wanted to make one final point. Commissioner oreilly and commissioner rosenworcel, the fcc approved the lagado autoification unanimously. Its no small feat for the fcc to agree in a unanimous manner and some would say in a bipar zan manner, especially in a complex issue like spectrum allocation. Even though the commission knew unanimous mousily agreed, the issue still took about a decade to complete spanning multiple administrations and administrations of multiple political parties. This wasnt as far as i can understand for partisan reasons, nor was it the product of pech lens or inaction on the part of commissioners. This wasnt for partisan reasons, but i do fear that it might reflect a broken interagency process for spectrum Decision Making. And if true, this would hinder u. S. Leadership in technology. So, i guess the decision i have for you is should the lagado decision be a warning sign for a broken interagency decision process, and what do we do to address this breakdown in communication between agencies on spectrum related Decision Making . Sure, thank you for bringing that up, senator. Were going to need more air waves if we want to power the 5g future. This is a tough story, the one the chairman exchanged with you. Weve got to do better. Here are three things we could do right now. First we should reform the Interdepartment Radio Advisory Committee which is how the fcc comes together with other federal actors to figure out what spectrum to reclaim. Second, we should do Something Like you and senator markey proposed in legislation. We need a full valuation of federal spectrum, what do they own, where, what is its value when it comes to all of our nations spectrum assets . And then weve got to set up a series of incentives. I dont think people do things when we continue to have knockdown drag out fights. What we need to do is make sure federal actors get the opportunity to see budgetary gain and not just loss from allocation. I would argue a couple of things similar to my colleague. One, we need to improve the structure to oversee spectrum policies. With agencies coming and complaining to congress, its not working. Whether its noaa or nasa or dod or. D. O. T. , coming at us one on one was cysystematic. Thats not what were getting today. I would agree with my colleague in term of incentives but ive suggested were going to need more sticks. Thats why i suggested we need budgetary impact, how much funding, how much assets theyre sitting on in term of dollars, evaluation pieces part of the budget, more sticks to push the issue aboard. The last thing i would say is Congress Needs to identify the bands. We can help you with that, identify new federal bands that need to be converted. Its a heavy lift. Its done by committee. It requires lite of lifting. Well said. Thank you. Ill turn back over to the chairman. Ill say in closing when somebody is going up against an issue, one that the fcc has addressed over a decade with great scientific expertise on an issue of Great National importance as this one, it darn welcome to the argument armed with something other than the catch phrase National Security or trust us, were right, or i cant tell you why i think this because its classified but trust us, National Security dictates we do this. Thats wrong. They know its wrong, and we cant let them get away with it. Thank you. Thank you, senator lee. Senator lee and senator blackburn have been very gracious during this hearing to take the gavel for an extended period of time, and i very much appreciate that. We might as well finish talking about la gadot. First of all, who wants to take this, this issue of a decision being made in the dark of night on a weekend . Who would like that . Chairman pai . I would be happy to take it. Its absolute nonsense. I circulated the order to commissioners on thursday. The majority of votes were in on the following day, friday it was released remotely as weve had to do so many things during this time frame. Absolutely. And weve, of course, do things in the regular course as we do on circulation. When you circulated that, was that provided only to the members and staff . Or was it a matter of Public Record . When we do things on circulation, we share it with all the commissioners and their staff. Okay. But we also shared six months earlier that exact draft with the department of defense among other agencies through the department of radio advisory committee. So, other agencies had that physical possession of it months and months in advance. Okay, why didnt you just vote on it on thursday . You have to wait a certain period of time . There are two different ways that things are voted on at the fcc. One is at monthly meetings in which ace can a chairman has to designate an item three weeks in advance. The other is you email the order to the commissioners and they have a period of time to suggest changes and the like. In this case, i did that, circulated on thursday. I cant speak for why the other offices voted when they did, but they did, and we released a week later. I think the chairmans correct when he says our regular processes were followed. Okay. A and mr. Oreilly. I waited until friday to vote. I had phone meetings. I listened to those arguments and voted, so it wasnt over the weekend. Ms. Rosenworcel, on this terminology interference, harmful interference, potentially impacting, help us parse is. Is harmful interference, a term of art . Well, its terminology that is widely used not just by the fcc but used worldwide. I think it means if something significantly obstructs, degrades or interferes with existing communication. And in every environment, the agency and our engineers is tasked with trying to give meaning to that. Like i mentioned before, our staff did work on doing that. So, to the extent that this new proposal hurts the gps functioning, that would not be permitted without compensation and correction by lagado. Am i correct there . I believe thats correct. It is a slightly more complicated story than that, but yes, that was the intent. At least after ten years it is more complicated. I know, i know. Youve been going back and forth with the chairman. Well let you wrap this up and recognize senator rosen im so sorry. On the harmful interference and interference. There are two different issues. First is how do you measure harmful interference and second, what is the likeliness of harmful interference. Theres a fundamental disagreement about the standard. The department of defense and others are advancing a certain standard called the 1db standard. Its a metric for measuring harmful interference. To take that seriously would wipe out communication. You can see a 1db change in any type of device, as operation. Putting aside 1db standard which ncia has rejected you move to the question of what is going to happen. The fcc testing over a long period of time a bunch of different gps receivers. They found the operations with the parameters were talking about, 9. 8 watts, 99 reduction would not cause harmful interference. One could make an argument that for High Precision receivers there may be some type of interference. With e said okay, tip lating there will be interference in that case, lets make sure we impose all these different conditions we discussed to ensure thats not the case and on top of that back it up with predeployment notification where any affected agency can tell us if theres interference, this needs to be remedied asap. So, given all of these conditions, i find it very hard to say that the fcc just rubber stamped this and sent it out into the ether. We take a careful look at this over a long period of time. It would have been easy to kick the can down the road. But thats not why were calling to these things. Were called to promote leadership in wireless and protect harmful interference. We have to make tough decisions and make them now and im not going to kick this can or any can down the road any longer. I guess we could win the race to 5g without this. This is the argument in every band, 2. 5, every single agency, every single band youll find somebody, some federal agency or stakeholder saying im completely in favor of American Leadership in 5g, just not in this band. This country would never go anywhere and thats part of the reason why weve done the hard work based on engineering, focusing on the facts to promote leadership and protect those interests. Were it otherwise, we would still be stuck in the starting blocks while china and south korea and europe and other regions race ahead of us. Senator rosen. Thank you, senator wicker. Thank you Ranking Member and for bringing this important oversight hearing for us today. I appreciate the witnesses for all your hard work in so many areas. Today i want to talk about maternal mapping on Health Outcomes because in nevada and across the country it has been incredible to see the way that telehealth that is enabled so many patients to e receive care while complying with the stayathome orders due to the pandemic. Telemedicine, we know its not a substitute for receiving a niz cal evaluation, it is useful in many application including keeping pregnant women and new mothers safe while accessing care. We have the highest maternal infant mortality rate amongst other developed countries before the pandemic and its especially crucial we use every tool and resource we have to reach every new and expectant mother. This is especially important for our high risk populations, women of color, disparities among our indigenous, africanamerican, and Rural Communities is even more pronounced during this pandemic. Thats why last year i introduced the data mapping to save moms lives act along with fisher yong and schatz. And this Bipartisan Legislation would direct the fcc to consult with the cdc to incorporate data on maternal Health Outcomes into the fixings broad band health maps in order to show core Broadband Health access and poor Health Outcomes, where they overlap in order to determine where telehealth is most needed. Chairman pai, i just really want to say thank you to your office for reaching out and working with mine to understand the issues and on the outstanding issues on this bill, commission you currently map health data for Rural Broadband position shortages, diabetes, obesities. I know youve updated your mapping platform, so Maternal Health shouldnt be a major challenge. For commissioner rosenworcel, i would like to thank you for your leadership on infant mortality. I would like to address how easy or difficult it would be for the commission to add to your Health Mapping platform. Thank you, senator for the question. Weve got a crisis in the country. Were the only industrialized nation with a rising level of mortality infant rates. Half of our counties in Rural America no longer have maternity ward. What ive learned is that they are coming up with all form of telemedicine to figure out how to take on this Maternal Health care crisis. So, i think it would be terrific if we could use some of our mapping data like we have in the past with diabetes to understand which communities are connected and which communities have the highest levels of Maternal Mortality because it is the start of a solution and we should make sure our work gets us there. So, building upon that, are there other Health Issues that you think might be useful for us to track if were going to be adding Maternal Mortality, maybe while were doing that we just add a few other things at the same time . What do you think might help . Its a really good question. There are two things to think about here. First, what type of Health Care Problems are we seeing in mass around this country that we have to correct for . And second, what subset of those problems are likely to be effectively managed with telemedicine . Weve seen early demonstrations that with Maternal Mortality with diabetes, these are tools where continuous home monitoring could make a huge difference. So, i would welcome a dialogue with congress and this committee to identify what meets those two criteria and how we can organize thinking about broadband in accord with it. I think thats terrific. I would like to ask you finally for the last few seconds i have how the fcc can harness the connected Care Pilot Telehealth Program to support this delivery of future Telehealth Services particularly for our rural or underserved communities . We do have this 100 Million Program weve announced and its a pilot. Rather than giving the money here or there, heres an idea, lets choose maternal moore 2rt, lets see what we can do with it in all 50 states nationwide . Thank you. I appreciate that. Ill yield back my last 20 seconds. Thank you. Thank you, senator rosen. We certainly hasnt been worried about 20second periods during this hearing. Let me see if we can nail a few things down. On the money that the Education Department was provided in c. A. R. E. S. , are you all coordinating with secretary devos . How does that work . And is there a way we can facilitate . Yes, we are, senator. Were working with the department of education making sure School Districts are are away of the 13 million and 3 million. Thats available for education technology. We want to make sure. Are wie a little slow on tha . We are not. I can tell you one of the first things we did after the act was passed was to sit down and figure out how to strategyize with the department of education and theyve had an open door as well. Were continuing that effort with the state counterparts. Its good what the chairmans doing. I appreciate his effort particularly with the 13 billion coordinating with the department of education. But that funding was also for sanitizing schools, teacher training. Thats a laundry list of things that schools are going to need to get back up and running just like you suggested. So, i think its essential that we identify how we can use e rate for a dedicated pool of funding to get school p students connected. Very good. Im told senator young is now in the queue, correct. Yes, thank you, mr. Chairman. Commissioner carr, so good to see you. I want to thank you for accepting my visit to come to indiana not too long ago. That was prepandemic. A lot has changed since then. Since the pandemic hit our country, i want to thank you for your work in establishing the 100 million connected Care Pilot Telehealth Program. Its really benefitted our state. Its a 200 million Telehealth Fund that we, in a bipartisan way, established through the c. A. R. E. S. Act. Just today the 10th street clinic in richmond, indiana, Community Health center in lawrenceburg, Decatur County Memorial Hospital in greenzburg, indiana, were awarded nearly a Million Dollars. So, the resources are getting out there and very much appreciated. I just ask you to briefly discuss the importance of both of these programs, the connected care pilot and the Telehealth Fund. And then if you could quickly pivot, kindly, to whether there are flexibilities related to telehealth that have been made temporarily available that should remain in place on a permanent basis based on your early assessment of how theyre working . Thank you, senator for the question and for your leadership on telehealth. I had a chance to join you out in indiana in mccordsville and visit a facility there relying on hideSpeed Internet connections. For years we focused on connections to brick and mortar ma silty. Thats important. Itll continue. Where we pivot now is the idea of connected care so people can access high quality care wherever they have high speed connection. Thats important in Rural America as this country is facing growing doctor divide. Its hard to get a general practitioner in Rural America, let alone a specialist. I think what were doing now is laying the groundwork to give erin in this country a fair shot at dwalty Affordable Health care. There are lessons we need to keep as we power out of this pandemic. I thinkhhs has done a lot of great work in short order to look at licensing reimbursement issues. Our emergency Covid Program will be followed by the separate 100 Million Program. I think we are moving in the right direction and we need to keep the red tape weve cut to the sideline. Well, thank you. Why dont we maintain a dialogue, as we have ever since you were confirmed to this position, about the issue of telehealth, and well continue, of course, to work with hhs on that issue. Commissioner oreilly, you recently blogged about removing unnecessary barriers and maximizing composition within the universal service fund through their auctions such as the upcoming Rural Digital Opportunity Fund that will extend broadband in rural indiana and across other rural areas around the country. Can you expand on this idea of maximizing composition and removing unnecessary barriers, maybe identifying specific actionables that need to be taken . Sure, my blog explored whether we should eliminate our Eligible Telecommunications carrier dez ig neigh requirement and actually recommended that congress do so. Ive talked to multiple providers who would like to participate and drive down the cost. So, when you think, were trying to drive a 30 billion program into 16 billion expenditure. Thats through competition. Its letting the different providers compete for different areas and driving down how much we need to subsi diez those things. Theres a barrier in my opinion thats no longer necessary. The burdens that exist today in term of state verification and state designation dont make any sense any longer in my opinion, especially since the fact that ed brother band and void are both areas that are outside state jurisdiction. I think its something that congress could be helpful for. If you eliminate that condition that auction winners be designated etcs under the statute, you crowd more people in the auction, you end up in short getting more value for the taxpayer in the end. Is that correct . Absolutely the right payer. The money thats collected on a monthly basis goes further and you expand Broadband Services throughout the nation, absolutely. Thank you so much. Im out of time. Thank you, senator young. Senator tester, have you had lunch yet . Chairman, thanks for caring. I appreciate that. I would say first of all, thank you for having this hearing and i want to thank the fixicc for being here. One of the advantages of being last is you get to hear everything thats been said. I want to go back to underserved areas and allocated 87 of the funds at the end of this administration. And the reason this is somewhat troubling is because this committee has always been, and i think its still there, has always been very, very bipartisan in the fact that we want maps that are right so we can spend the money and not waste the money. Were talking about accountability for staff, a little over 16 billion if my math is correct. That 16 billion doesnt grow on trees even though we spend money around here like it does. The question is and its to chairman pai and ms. Rosenworcel if you would like is that i dont see how youre going to put this money out. Ive just got to tell you, i want the money out sooner than later. I come from a state with underserved areas big time in it. But the potential for wasting money here is just over the top. And i want you to tell me, chairman pai, how this is going to how this moneys going to be appropriated out so it isnt just a crap shoot. Senator, there are thousands upon thousands of locations in montana that we know based on any map you consult are unserved. And that is exactly what phase one is targeting. What some would argue is that unless and until we figure out how to suburbs of milwaukee are getting covered or not, we will not move forward with montana. Thats not acceptable to me. So, chairman pai, you have maps that are rock solid certain that if you take this 16 billion and put it in the marketplace that that money is going to go to underserved skars and not overbill in others. Absolute i. Phase one goes to underserved areas, areas we suggested are underserved and now weve gone through the challenge process. We can confirm theyre unserved. Were talking about thousands of locations in your state that for the first time will get broadband employment. Thats music to my ears. But the question has been before why hasnt the money already been appropriated to those areas if we knew they dont have the service . I cant speak for what happened before i got in office, but the first thing we did was to reorient our usf programs to target unserved parts of the country to firmly close the digit digital divine. Ive seen it myself. Its high time that these folks in montana and other unserved areas got Digital Opportunity. Im not willing to wait for months or even years while we figure out what suburban areas are partially served before we get these unserved parts of the country on the right side of the Digital Divide. Ive got it. But one of the major problems has always been and i dont want to were both on the same page. We both want to do the same thing. I think everybody is on the same page. We want to make sure the money is well spent. Youve been with the fcc for a long time. Its not like you havent been affiliated with this board, this commission. I couldnt agree more, senator. Thats why in august, we issued the Digital Opportunity Data Collection to get the more granular maps. Congress has passed the act but doesnt give us any funding to implement the broadband data mandates. 6 amillion in the first year alone is required. We dont have it. Thats why im coming to you and went to the appropriations sun dmit tee last week to ask for this funding. We need it to create the maps. I got it and appreciate things dont happen by air. Ill just tell you this, that i think that accountability issue here becomes a real problem because if youre doing it before you walk out the door potentially and were counting on those maps being correct and if theyre not we just just wasted a ton of money. Look, i think i supported nearly everybody if not everybody and the fact is that we need to have this work. If weve seen anything in montana, weve seen the health care being short chain, weve seen education be short chain because we dont have the service and thats the bottom line. I hear you. You say we are going to do it, i just hope you are right on that. One last thing i just want to ask and thats a question that senator schatz provided health care to the cares act. Montana got zero and other states did to based on the incidents of covid19. I would just say this, our governor took actions that were very preemptive and its stop things from happening like they could have happened. We are getting penalized because government governments should have been a leadership. We dont know where this virus is going to go and weve got at least three proposals and i would ask you to go back and look at those, to see if theres any money left in that fund, to try to help these folks out. Montana is just not a state, people are there and its a great group of people so we need to service them. Senator, if i might, i did want to let you know that we have given grants to for example st. Joseph in seattle, which has been given 1 Million Dollars in funding including sea patrick hospital and st. Joseph medical center, in addition to that a very easy care 3000 to cover in part ten Montana Health care providers across the state, so i look forward to continuing to work with you to make sure your state get the help needs under the program. I appreciate that and i appreciate the help that weve gotten. Thank you mister chairman. Thank you senator tester. Before i go to senator cinema. Chairman pai, when did the fcc first conceive of the art off, why did you force that working on this . Gosh, early 2018 or, yes, i believe its sorry late 2018 of remember correctly. I have to go back and look at the calendar but its been a while. A long time coming. Okay so i first publicly announced it if i remember in the spring of 2019. If it goes forward on time in october, when i think the problem we see is going to take a long time to build this out. Now we could to use a whole lot more money from the congress and get this bill out done much faster, could be not . Absolutely, mister chairman. We welcome that, we do not . Yes we would welcome that, would you not . I think as we have established, i think theres a fatal flaw in its foundation but your idea to speed it up because people cant wait and that you would make sure that winners get additional funds if they build faster is one that has certain sense to it, yes. Senator sinema, thank you for indulging me they are just trying to nail that down. You are recognized. Thank you mister chairman and thank you to all of our witnesses. You know, i look forward to looking to the fcc and my colleagues on this committee to support americans with expanded affordable broadband acts that stir during the pandemics as job, schools and health care have shifted online. My first question is for the commissioner rosenworcel for. Im sorry. No problem. Now more than ever, communities across the area need reliable access to emergency services. I heard from arizona is lacking selfservice including some seniors living at the sundance rv resort and the fairways community in county, many of whom cant reach 911 in about an emergency. In fact, during a recent 30 minute call between my staff and a resident discussing this poor cell service, the call was dropped three times. So the fcc mobile mobility fun failed to reach committees a need because a mass for just plain wrong. Im concerned the fcc might return the mistakes in the past and again spend money without ensuring commuters and need it like in panel, county. How do you are macomb and we invest to help arizonians live with a Reliable Service . Thank you senator for the question. Not like it could be a matter of life or death. You can call 911, you cant get health care and for a long time, the fcc has been trying to figure out with propagation maps from carriers were services and services not. What we found is that many of the match we have from carriers were profoundly wrong. So we are going to take the authority you gave us in the broadband data act and rebuild our wireless maps, figure out where service is and is not what we do it lets just not do it here in washington with the five of us, lets not just go to carriers, lets go to people in arizona and every other state in the country who from the lived experience know where you get bars on your phone and where you dont and use that kind of crowd sourcing to inform our data and that way we will develop the kind of information that allows us to target funds to places that need it most. Thank you. Chairman pai, that when i got right, we need to provide tribal governments with the resources to ensure ecuador Broadband Access for any country. I work to ensure tribes in arizona can utilize the 2. 5 gigabytes ban for Broadband Services. The tribal priority filing window for the spectrum can lessen the Digital Divide in the country but to learn about the spectrum and understand how they can use it. Unfortunately, tribes have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus and have requested additional time to apply for the spectrum. Would you commit to a 180day extension for the tribal priority filing window in the 2. 5 bigger hurts bad because of the coronavirus . Thank you senator for the question. We certainly appreciate your leadership on issues of tribal connectivity. It was my insistence that we included this to rural tribal priority windows, to give tribes first dip. Im aware of the request from some advocates for an extension of the window and thats something that we are currently considering. We will be happy to keep your team apprized as we make that decision. Please do. As you may be aware, chairman pai, there are several tribes in arizona which are currently facing the most severe outbreaks in the entire country. In fact, reaching levels above that of new york. So the need for them to have additional flexibility during this very dangerous time in their communities is important. Commissioner, do you also agree with the chairman about the need to consider ending time for travel committees have access to this decision . Yes, so its a once in a lifetime opportunity for tribes to have some mid band spectrum, to promote wireless Broadband Services. They are the some of the least connective committees in the country. I should we should give an extension of that august 3rd deadline because tribal communities have been more affected by the virus than others and i think an extension of 180 days is warranted. Thank you. Chairman pai, i will follow with you directly on the specific needs of the trouble communities in arizona and i would ask you again to very strongly consider granting them an extension as right now there are trouble communities are internally focused on life and death during this pandemic. Mister chairman, i leo back my time. Thank you. Thank you so much senator sinema. Let me tie up some loose ends and i do appreciate the commission indulging us. Chairman pai, there is some build out in on served areas being done through funds provided through rus, the rural utility service. Is there a chance that in the rdof process there could be duplication there and how do we avoid that . There is not mister chairman. So per the fccs orders, we want to make sure that there was no company, no provider that is under a legal obligation to either a federal or state program to build broadband to that area. So those types of areas will not be eligible in phase one of the rdof because we dont want to give companies essentially twice the money to do the same thing. Okay. Now lets see what, commissioner carr, broadcasters are in the process of employing a technological evolution at their signal. Atsc3. 0 will provide broadcasters with opportunities beyond simply broadcasting. Could you please explain what the new atsc 3. 0 technology is, how it works and how you think this will facilitate greater applications in Rural America . Thank you senator for the question. I think atsc 3. 0 it is a really fascinating technology. It takes the same spectrum that americans received today over the Years Television and lets broadcasters use some or all of that to offer effectively a 25 megabit per second, so think of it as a high Speed Internet down link, over its existing footprint. So can be used from anything of updating connective cars with these lobbed scale files that they need for mapping, which can be important for Rural Communities to just downloading movies potential on your phone. I think the future of connectivity is going to be one where you dont have necessarily the same hype us the download pipe in the upload pipe at the same time. You may be able to coupled together different options from different technologies and different spectrum brands. So i think broadcast intern is going to be part of the future of connectivity in our decision at the fcc this month remove the overhang of some regulations that could slow down the build out nationwide a broadcast internet services. Thank you. Commissioner orielly, let me get your comment about the universal service funds. Stakeholders have concerns about the sustainability of the funding mechanism. What solution do you recommend if any to ensure the u. S. Remain sustainable in the months and years ahead and what are your thoughts on making sure this remains sustainable . It is not sustainable as it currently sits. Some of that is because of the pandemic that is going on, but its been rising for far too long. There have been a number of ideas that have been put forward. One of those push forward by the state commissioners would involve attacks on broadband. I havent favored that and that is at loggerheads. We havent been able to get past our conversation. Ive asked for any idea and all to be debated out and lets figure out how we can get to a new mechanism for u. S. F funding. Our expenditure, amount of money, the four programs plus some that are outside are being increase in the amount of dollars that are going out, the money coming in is problematic and how we collect it. Commissioner starks or commissioner rosenworcel, do you want to jump in on that . I think that commissioner orielly and i both had the pleasure of running the universal Service Joint state board that has tried to wrestle with these issues and honestly, its really hard because a system that was set up in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 assume the future was interstate Long Distance voice. What that means is that is what we assessed against in order to come up with all these funds to build ball build broadband so factors keep rising because the full of tools that we assess against keep falling, its simple math. I think ive come to the conclusion that we are going to have to work with congress to figure out what comes next because i dont think the law and what we were contemplating in 1996 is quite adequate for the moment that we are in. I think people viewing this hearing today can appreciate theres a lot that the commission needs to work with. Chairman pai, temporary waivers on lifeline oversight expire in a day or two. How do you plan to ensure the qualified lifeline yours remain connected while also ensuring it doesnt expense ways . Great question mister chairman. We try to ensure we grant maximum flexibility. For example, just recently we took the step of making sure that royal tribal consumers that cant produce documentation for eligibility are able to get service nonetheless for 45 days after the application is submitted to the provider get some additional time to verify the documentation. Weve also relaxed ian roman and certification rules. We have taken other steps and we will happy to consider extending those if necessary to meet the needs of the emergency. There have been a whole bunch of stuff like this we have taken to make sure low income consumers can have that connectivity and certainly think a number of my colleagues support has been very important in the process. Thank you. We havent talked about replacement yet. The fcc recently collected data from Telecommunications Provider for the use of huawei and their networks throughout so far, how are we doing, how much you think it will cost to rip out that equipment and replaces with Network Components from trusted suppliers as we all agree needs to be done and has congress has put into the statute . We will take it . So our preliminary estimate is it would cost up to two billion to rip and replace that equipment with trusted vendors. Right now as you mentioned, we have a Data Collective that we have received all the information from. The office of economics and analytics going through that information to verify the nature of the equipment involved and what the scope what the price tag would before replacing it and so once we reach that assessment, wed be happy to work with your team to make sure the adequate resources are given to companies to rip and replace that problematic acquit mid. I think its worth two billion dollars to the taxpayers . Oh, i think in this regard in is indeed. Making sure that we have trusted vendor supplying that equipment and services and our network is incredibly important. What is the timeframe of getting this done . You mean in terms of completing the mandate under rip and replace, secure and trusted company pewter networks. As quickly as we can and we want to work with you to make sure we do it as soon as possible. This is a issue ive been banging the drum for a couple years and we need to make sure we take action with dispatch. How some can be done . I cant give your full answer because i dont know the nature of the funding that is going to be provided. We dont yet know the scope of the problematic equipment so i would hesitate to give you an answer if there are thousands of providers out there or hundreds. The timeframe shifts very significantly. Okay. Lets talk about regulatory barriers, commissioner carr and i think this is your question. The fcc recently improved an infrastructure order that clarifies key citing rules for Wireless Infrastructure employment including 5g. This is intended to illuminate unnecessary and accelerate Wireless Networks upgrades. I understand you are the League Commissioner on this order, is that correct sir . And what impact do you see from the 5g up there . Do you anticipate having creased build out as a result . Thank you senator for your question and your work to help promote the accelerated build of infrastructure. I our, goal is to see 5g build in every single community. The finish line was never one new york or San Francisco see their first 5g built. Weve made tremendous progress over the last couple of years and one way that we ultimately closed at Digital Divide is to make sure that internet infrastructure is available in every community. This 5g upgrade order looks at existing macro towers, which serve a lot of Rural Communities. I was at one not too long ago in maryland. A couple of hundred feet on a farm. I got to climb up the tower with charlie and erin, to americas hardworking tower tex. Swapping on an antenna from a 2g style intended to a 5g antenna. It took them last in an hour, but the regulatory process can drag on for months and months, so we updated and clarified our approach, under section 64 zero nine, which congress passed. I do think its going to accelerate the upgrade to 5g particularly in Rural Communities. Whos going to be offended by this . Whos going to fight you . Based on the issue at the fcc that deals with the build up infrastructure, we are going to see pushback from state local governments that ultimately oversee the citing process. Ive been pleased by those weve gone support from, a lot of state and local officials who want 5g built out of the community, understand that if we drive down the regulatory cost of building out, its going to happen in their communities faster. Commissioner rosenworcel, it is going to be easy . laughs weve been here for three hours, nothing feel totally easy at this point. Thank you all, we have so many issues. No, no, no i appreciate your interest in them. Listen, weve got a streamline the deployment of infrastructure in this country, that is an absolute given. We also have a tenth amendment and a long history of local control in this country. You know, people dont take kindly to five unelected people telling them what they can and cannot do in their own backyard and so we are at that the figure out how to balance those two things. I would suggest this, that if you have future infrastructure legislation with dollars attached, you should condition them on a speedy resolution of siding and permits at the local level. Lets figure out how we can use carrots rather than sticks to get this done. What we are anticipating such legislation. So i read. Chairman pai, what can you tell us about the pending proceeding at the fcc to create a new radio broadcast referred to as fm class for c4. Have you heard about that . Ive heard a little bit about that, mister chairman. Can you give us an updates and tell us what the considerations are . I appreciate the question. We received a petition from mmtc among other advocates, to suggest a class c4 can be used for certain radio broadcasters and i put that on the floor for my colleagues consideration at the request of one of my colleagues. We converted what was originally tended to be a rulemaking into a notice of inquiry. My understanding based on the last time weve had these discussions is that there is not a majority support for moving ahead and so we look forward to Creative Solutions to try and advance the ball in a way that reflects consensus on this issue. Who has doubts about this that you like to voice . Yes, commissioner orielly . I dont like to voice, but i will voice. I have concerns it will cause, you know, our favorite word, harmful interference to existing radio broadcasters. Theres a big, you know, disagreement amongst existing broadcasters and the impact of this. What i did i ask the chairman to go from one and pr it was fairly empty and i thought he would understand the impacts and should explain what the value of this going forward, it didnt, so we went to on noi and hopefully thats being addressed and fully fleshed out. I havent seen that in full sense. What is a noi . Its a more vague approach in our process. Okay, well there are people out there who will very much benefit from that answer. Okay. Let me stir the pot on my last question. Commissioner carr, you said something that makes sense to me. About how well weve done during this recent period as compared to our friends across the ocean and from adversaries across the ocean. In terms of the internet working, you say Americas Network perform because of the private sector is massive investment in our internet infrastructure over the past years. So the question is, why did this happen . Are we just lucky . You conclude the Networks Performance under stress the 5g build out and all this investment dont happen by chance, they are fostered by like touch regulatory approach to infrastructure, to the approach that if it has clear rules that keep pace with changing technology. Apparently, in your view, also the courage investment by the private specgx sector, which got us to the favorable position that weve got in last few months. So youve expressed your opinion there. Ill let anybody on the Panel Discuss this and challenge it or take a different view. Do we all agree with the conclusion of commissioner carr in that regard . Are you raising your hand, commissioner rosenworcel . I just want to qualify. First, lets be proud how our Nations Network has responded to this crisis. I am proud. I believe theyve done a good job. Heres a thing, i would like if we collect a date on it. We dont even collect standardize data on broad bound outages. Its not part of our Network Outage reporting system and so the one thing i would say is im not sure if we know on a regional and local level how well its perform because we are not collecting data on it. And how would we do that . Well i think we would updates our outage reporting structure so that it reflects the broadband age. Right now we primarily collect data on legacy telephone outages but you know just last week we had a major wireless provider that i had an outage that affected big swaps of the country, Wireless Phone didnt work for one Major National provider. We have to figure out how our outage system and reporting reflects a way that people use Services Today so that we can use that data to make sure our policies are smart in the future. Thank you and chairman pai, you get the last word in this lengthy hearing on that topic. Why and is it a fact that our system performed so much better and why is that . I appreciate the question, mister chairman. I think the answer that commissioner carr gave is correct. If you look at it from 16,000 feet, over the last three years, weve had to had some we had to make some very difficult decision. Some of the more popular, some of them were less so, but at the end of the day the proof is in the pudding. Because of some of the decisions weve made to get rid of utility style regulations of internet for structure, to get rid of the heavyhanded regulation of business data services, to streamline the process for Wireless Infrastructure deployment, to encourage companies to focus their investments on fiber instead of copper, these types of decisions have created an incredibly strong incentives for companies to make the Massive Network investments that are necessary for moments just like this. For the fact that we havent had the courage to make some of these decisions, i dare say that we may have been put in the position similar to the european union, which proactively, as commissioner mentioned golden netflix, youtube, another streaming services, and asked them to proactively throttle their own consumers band which in order to make sure the networks didnt collapse. Im incredibly proud, not just of the american Broadband Network performance, but of all the Building Blocks that one place for that success. One of the critical ones of which was the Regulatory Framework weve established over the last three years. Well, thank you chairman pai, thank you all and these are words youve been longing to hear. The hearing record will remain open for two weeks during this time senators are to submit any questions for the record upon receipt, the witnesses are able to provide the written answers as soon as possible but no later than midnight wednesday july 29th, 2020. I thank you and this hearing is now adjourned. [background sounds]. [background sounds]. [background sounds]. [background sounds]. [background sounds]. [background sounds]. First ladies, influence and image on American History tv examines the private lives of public rows of the nations first ladies through interviews with top historians. Tonight, we look at ellen wilson, edith wilson and florence hearting. Ellen wilson, who was an accomplished painter created a private art studio among the renovated ruins of the third floor of the white house. Following president Woodrow Wilsons debilitating stroke, eat it wilson quietly around the executive branch of government for the remainder of wilsons second term including matters of state and Florence Harding was the first first lady to vote in the president ial election and to receive secret service protection. Watch first ladies influence an image tonight on 8 pm eastern on American History tv on cspan three. Doctor fauci, based on what you are seeing now how many covid19 deaths and infections should america expect before this is all over . I cant make an accurate prediction but it is going to be very disturbing, i will guarantee you that because when you have an outbreak in one part of the country even though one other parts of the country they are doing well, they are vulnerable. I made that point very clearly last week at a press conference. We cant just focus on those areas that are having the surge. It puts the entire country at risk. We are now having 40 plus thousand new cases a day. I would not be surprised if we go up to 100,000 a day if this does not turn around and so i am very concerned. Can you make any kind of estimates on what we are looking at overall on the number of deaths before this is over . You made an estimate back in march between 100,000 and 200, 000, but we have a lot more information now and were already at 126,000 deaths. Right, i cant make an estimation because i would have to be modeled out because one models are done and thats where those original numbers came from, senator. As i said very often, models are as good as the assumptions that you put into the model and those assumptions often change depend on what your responses. So i would feel very hesitant to give a number that will come back in either be contradicted or overblown or on your born. But i think its a point to tell you when the American Public that im very concerned because it could get very bad. I was just part of what doctor Anthony Fauci had to say earlier today in front of the Senate Health committee. You can see the entire hearing tonight at 9 30 pm eastern on cspan. Suspends washington journal every day we are taking your phone calls live on the air on the news of the day and we will discuss policy issues that impact you. Coming up wednesday morning, Michigan Democratic congresswoman dare b dingell will join us. 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We were going down from 30,000 to 25 to 20 and now we sort of state about flatten out we are going up. Briefings from the white house on Foreign Affairs. Congress on health care. Instead for four and administration officials. But i do think there is a line one should not cross where governmental powers used essentially exclusively for personal benefit. We will stand proud and we will stand tall. And the latest from the campaign 2020 trail. Join in the conversation every day on our live call in Program Washington journal and if you missed any of our live coverage, watch anytime on demand as cspan. Org or listen on the go with the free cspan radio app. A house subcommittee held a hearing on air travel safety during the coronavirus pandemic. Among the witnesses for data science and engineering professors who gave recommendations on how to slow the spread of the coronavirus as well as other Communicable Diseases in airplanes and airports. This is an hour and a half. What that objection, the chair is authorized to declare recess at any time. Before i deliver my opening remarks, i want to make note that today the committee is meeting virtually and in this virtual format, i want to begin with a couple of reminders. To the members in participants about the conduct of this hearing, first, a member should