‘We need to stop screwing around’

An interview with House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Greg Walden (R-OR).

When asked, "What are your thoughts on the broadband provisions that are in the recent Democratic package they released? You talk a lot about the digital divide, you've discussed it for so many years — is there anything in there that you're compelled by that you would get behind?" Ranking Member Walden said, "We're still working our way through it. This is hard for me to say — despite the 3 trillion, it actually doesn't fully fund the Broadband DATA Act, so that's kind of ironic. But we obviously weren't consulted in any of this, and I understand that was their plan all along, and obviously there are lots of places in there where we can work together on some of these things. But I do worry that the voluntary commitments of some of the carriers — to waive fees, to do all of the things they've done in this emergency — are laudable, but I hope it doesn't become 'every good deed goes punished' by the federal government, so what you do voluntarily in the crisis becomes mandatory in statute. I think that's not the way to go. I know we need to close the digital divide, I've supported that for a long time. We're still going through it. Clearly, the telehealth [provision] makes a lot of sense, but there's some issues there. And remember we've done some hearings on the telehealth, and some states have done amazing work with very little money. There are a whole bunch of barriers we need to break down on telemedicine, and they have during the emergency. Those ought to stay down, but there's more work to do."