In the last two decades, the growth and widespread use of the internet has fundamentally transformed the way in which we interact, work, and engage in education and hobbies. Like generations before us that saw widespread adoption of electricity and telephones, the Internet is now inextricably linked to our lives and has developed into essential infrastructure. The pandemic has made evident the breadth and width of the digital divide in our unserved and underserved rural communities. We desperately need to bridge this gap in order to help commerce thrive, help families communicate, and increase access to education.

I will work with my colleagues to remove regulatory barriers of entry for emerging wired and wireless broadband technologies and seek to improve the process for delivering broadband grant funding to our communities in the Ninth District and across Georgia. Additionally, I believe the Internet is infrastructure and we must ensure there is robust investment in rural broadband in any bipartisan infrastructure package developed by this Congress.