There’s no reason for Amodei to oppose high-speed internet for rural Nevadans

Thursday, April 4, 2024 | 2 a.m.

Reliable high-speed internet is no longer a luxury, it is a necessity for success and opportunity in the United States.

As the COVID pandemic revealed, almost everything we do, from banking and finance to education and health care, requires reliable high-speed internet access. Organizations ranging from large corporations to institutions of higher education to nonprofit organizations now commonly use online forms that automatically manage and store documents, data and communication. Some have even eliminated paper correspondence altogether.

While older internet connections may suffice for text-based purposes such as applying for school or employment, going beyond submitting the application and engaging in activities such as online lectures, video interviews and remote work requires faster and more reliable internet connectivity that is difficult to find in many of America’s low-income households, especially those located in rural communities. The result is that these communities are too often left behind by the assumption that the internet is everywhere.

In 2021, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris sought to address the growing technological gap in the United States by championing the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP).

To address the issue, the Affordable Connectivity Program provided eligible households with a rebate of $30 per month ($75 per month for households located on tribal lands) on their internet bill. Harris led negotiations with internet service providers to offer packages that could be covered fully by the ACP rebate. Eligible households also received a one-time discount of up to $100 to purchase a computer or tablet.

Eligibility is determined by income, which must be at below 200% of the federal poverty guidelines, meaning a single person would need to make less than $30,000 annually while a family of four could earn as much as $62,400. Individuals could also demonstrate need by meeting the qualifications for other assistance programs, including Medicaid, WIC, SNAP, veteran’s pensions and Social Security Income.

Since being passed as part of Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in late 2021, more than 23 million households nationwide have enrolled in the program, including nearly 300,000 Nevada households. Of those, nearly half are home to U.S. military personnel or their families, and approximately a quarter are senior citizens.

By comparison, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal rural electrification program, which is widely credited with creating decades of unprecedented growth in the U.S. economy, provided electric services to just 288,000 households.

Despite the ACP’s unprecedented success in connecting millions of households to reliable high-speed internet, funding for the program is set to expire next month.

Without the assistance of the ACP, many families, students, veterans and older adults are at risk of losing access to the internet and once again being left behind by an increasingly interconnected digital society.

Thankfully, Nevada’s own Sen. Jacky Rosen is leading the fight for continued funding.

In January, she joined a bipartisan team of four senators and eight representatives to introduce the Affordable Connectivity Program Extension Act of 2024. If passed, it would extend funding for the ACP through at least the end of 2024, giving Congress valuable time to establish a more permanent funding source.

Nevada Democratic Reps. Dina Titus and Steven Horsford have also signed on as sponsors of a companion bill introduced in the House.

Rep. Susie Lee, D-Nev., who supported the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and helped build a partnership with Cox Communications to create Innovation Labs at eight Boys & Girls Clubs in Nevada, is expected to support the funding extension as well, though as of press time, she had yet to sign on as a sponsor.

Mark Amodei, the only Republican in Nevada’s federal legislative delegation, has provided only manipulative and hypocritical doublespeak on the issue. Just one month after he voted against the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, including the Affordable Connectivity Program, he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he would work to “ensure that each and every individual, family and business has access to reliable internet service.”

But talk is cheap. A vote in favor of the exact policy Amodei claims to support would be more convincing. Only time will tell if he votes to extend funding for the ACP, but we’re not holding our breath.

The House Republican caucus, including Amodei, has failed to accomplish much of anything since taking control of the chamber more than a year ago. Remember, this is the same GOP-controlled House that failed to extend funding to feed hungry children.

We hope the ACP will prove the exception. After all, it is rural communities like those in Amodei’s congressional district that have the greatest need for reliable high-speed internet access and who benefit the most from programs like the ACP.The program is an unprecedented success that appears to be both efficient and effective. If Amodei and his Republican colleagues allow it to fail now, they are not only failing their constituents but wasting the time and money that was used to set up the program and drive enrollment in the first place.

“We have successfully connected millions upon millions of households to broadband services. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law established a historic and unquestionably successful program to make broadband affordable, and we now appear on the brink of letting that success slip away,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a press release in support of continued funding earlier this year. “Disconnecting millions of families from their jobs, schools, markets and information is not the solution. We have come too far with the ACP to turn back.”

We agree and call on Amodei and Congress to get the ACP funding extension passed before it’s too late.