Lawmaker is Author of Mandate Requiring National Broadband Plan
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Representative Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), author of the requirement in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that directed the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to develop a National Broadband Plan, today hailed the FCC‘s outlines of the Plan and the enhancements to the E-Rate (or “Education Rate”) program announced at the Commission’s Open Meeting. The National Broadband Plan mandated that the Plan seek to ensure that all Americans have access to broadband and include strategies for using broadband infrastructure and services to advance national priorities, including energy independence and efficiency, education, job creation and entrepreneurial activity.
“As the author of the requirement in the Recovery Act tasking the FCC to develop a National Broadband Plan for our country, I am heartened by today’s preview. The outline announced today suggests that the Commission is on track to fulfill the mandate that I wrote by producing a bold, future-focused, strategy for broadband deployment and adoption in our country,” said Markey.
Rep. Markey is chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming and also chairman of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment. He also was the lead House author of the original E-Rate (or “Education Rate”) program, which was created as a part of the 1996 Telecommunications Act to help the nation's schools connect to the Internet and other telecommunications services. On February 9, 2010, Markey introduced the E-Rate 2.0 Act (H.R. 4619) to update and expand the successful E-Rate program.
Consistent with the mandate authored by Rep. Markey, the National Broadband Plan is designed to help increase energy independence. The Plan will recommend the integration of broadband with smart grid technology through multiple paths, over public and private and wired and wireless networks to accelerate smart grid electricity systems.
The Plan will also call on utilities, localities and states to voluntarily give consumers and consumer-authorized third parties access to real-time energy information in standardized formats. Rep. Markey has long recognized that this information could create an innovation platform and a rich data stream that could lead to new products and services to help consumers manage energy consumption.
“This will open up a whole new world of energy apps to help homeowners unlock the potential in their homes and electric cars to meet their energy needs,” said Rep. Markey. “I intend to draft legislation that ensures that utilities in all states allow their customers to authorize third parties to get access to the data needed to support the development of these new smart grid applications, while ensuring that the appropriate privacy and security measures are in place.”
The Plan also targets maximizing use of broadband for health care through remote patient monitoring, use of electronic health records, and promotion of telemedicine applications. Rep. Markey is a longstanding advocate of the use of health IT with strong privacy and security protections for patients. Last year, he re-introduced the Independence at Home Act (H.R. 2560) to enable severely and chronically ill Medicare beneficiaries to receive coordinated, effective primary care in their own homes by a team of health care providers including physicians, nurse practitioners, physical therapists, and other health providers.
The provisions of Rep. Markey’s legislation, which was introduced by Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) in the Senate (S. 1131), were included in the health care reform bills passed by both the House and Senate, and they include use of remote and electronic monitoring and communication technologies and mobile diagnostic and therapeutic technologies to support care of this patient population in the home.
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