Rep Pingree (D-ME) backs bill to ban states from blocking municipal high-speed internet projects

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In 2017, a legislative panel unanimously rejected a bill drafted by a secretive group that would have made it nearly impossible for communities to build their own high-speed internet networks, even when cable and telephone companies declined to do so. Now, Rep Chellie Pingree (D-ME) is co-sponsoring legislation in Congress that aims to make sure there isn’t a repeat of the measure and to overturn laws passed in recent years in 17 other states. 

The Maine bill rejected by lawmakers in May 2017 was modeled on one that’s been advanced in statehouses across the country by the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, a group that claims to be a nonpartisan professional association for legislators but is funded almost entirely by member corporations, which use it to write laws member lawmakers can call their own. The congressional legislation, the Community Broadband Act of 2018, prohibits states from adopting laws, regulations, and requirements that prohibit or effectively prohibit public providers from creating high-speed telecommunications capabilities. Introduced by Rep Anna Eshoo (D-CA) it is co-sponsored by Rep Pingree and six other Democratic lawmakers.


Rep Pingree (D-ME) backs bill to ban states from blocking municipal high-speed internet projects