New Mexico relies on broadband to connect its extensive rural areas and important rural industries. Quality broadband connections allow the oil and gas industry to operate more safely and efficiently than ever before, and enhanced broadband can enable cost-saving measures without compromising safety. Similarly, large ranches and farms require broadband for high-end uses such as precision agriculture applications and robotic harvesters. Smaller ranches and farms need quality broadband connections for many of the same reasons as other small business owners, including direct sales; marketing and logistical management; professional training; and providing their families with health care, educational, and social opportunities. For over a decade, New Mexico has been taking steps to improve broadband in all areas of the state. But state broadband programs have struggled because of a lack of consistent funding and clear mandates. In 2020, CTC Technology & Energy estimated it will cost between $2 billion and $5 billion to bring fiber-based broadband to all of rural New Mexico. This month, New Mexico received over $100 million through the federal American Rescue Plan Act's Coronavirus Capital Projects Fund to fuel broadband deployment.

Technical assistance for broadband expansion in Alabama is the focus of a series of meetings in the state. The Alabama Community Broadband Technical Assistance program kicked off recently and will be offered in each of the state’s 67 counties. The program works to provide technical assistance to municipalities and other public stakeholders in the state who are working to ensure broadband is accessible to everyone. The program is administered by the state’s Department of Economic and Community Affairs’ Alabama Digital Expansion Division. Meetings are open to the public. The program will help municipalities prepare for broadband and digital opportunities. The funding stems from the US Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). Alabama plans over the next few years to make funding available for broadband expansion. Plans include engaging with elected officials, internet service providers, government and community anchors, community-based organizations, and the public to shape plans that will set counties in the best possible scenario for expansion. $5 million in grant awards was made available from the Broadband, Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program and another $981,081 through the Digital Equity Act was provided to support program and planning efforts.

Recent legislation included big increases in federal funding for the deployment of broadband, which is increasingly critical to daily life, but unavailable in some areas. Our analysis found that thousands more skilled workers will be needed to deploy broadband and 5G funded by recent federal programs. If this work is spread over 10 years, the funding would support about 23,000 additional workers at its peak. A shorter timespan could require even more of them. We found mixed evidence on whether there's a shortage of these workers. Their unemployment rate was low, but we didn't observe wages going up in this area, which would suggest a shortage. GAO found that thousands of additional workers would be needed to build the amount of infrastructure associated with such increases in funding from eight selected broadband infrastructure deployment programs. GAO found that the pace at which these programs provide funding will impact the annual number of additional workers needed. For instance, if funding is provided over a 10-year span, GAO estimates that about 23,000 additional workers could be supported by the peak year of funding in 2023, declining to about 9,000 additional workers in 2031 due to the impact of inflation and because funds for some programs must be expended before 2032. The shorter the time frame over which federal funds are provided, the more workers will be needed per year. Assuming a 5-year funding time period, for example, about 34,000 additional workers would be needed by the peak year of funding in 2023.

Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH), who will chair the House Judiciary Committee next Congress, gave a hint of what is to come with letters sent to five big tech companies requesting information about conservative material removed from their platforms. In letters sent to large online platforms, Rep Jordan requested the top executives at Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook provide any information they have about contact with President Joe Biden's administration regarding "the moderation, deletion, suppression, restricting, or reduced circulation of content." Rep Jordan and other Republicans have argued that the companies stifle conservative voices, something that they have denied. 

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced the Shielding Children's Retinas from Egregious Exposure on the Net (SCREEN) Act, which would direct the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to issue a rule requiring all commercial pornographic websites to adopt age verification technology to ensure children cannot access pornographic content. Specifically, the SCREEN Act:

• Directs the FCC to issue a rule to require commercial pornographic websites to adopt age verification technology to ensure that users of the website are not children.
• Within the required rule, the FCC is required to:
  • Set a “more likely than not” verification standard for pornographic websites for the purposes of determining whether the user of a pornographic website is a child or not.
  • Allow pornographic websites to choose their method of age verification provided that it meets the FCC’s verification standards and prohibits a child from accessing the pornographic content on the website.
  • Permit websites to contract with third party age verification providers to carry out the verification requirements, and
  • Establish an audit process to ensure compliance with the rule as well as ensure no identifiable user data is shared with the federal government.
• Grants the FCC the necessary enforcement powers (both civil penalty and injunctive relief) to enforce the verification rule.

Samuel Levine, director of the Federal Trade Commission's bureau of consumer protection, said the agency won't hesitate to sue companies that play fast and loose with customers' data. Levine also warned companies that operate under FTC consent decrees — which includes Twitter — that "there's no pause button" on such agreements. Levine is playing a key role in shaping the agency's potential new rules on "commercial surveillance" — which includes the targeted advertising that drives so many online business models. Those rules also focus on data security, and privacy advocates see them as a key means to restrain industry abuses in the absence of a federal online privacy law. The agency could issue them in 2023. Levine said the FTC's consumer protection bureau will keep working with its bureau of competition, which is in charge of antitrust cases, to gauge where a lack of competition may be affecting consumer privacy and other experiences online.