{"id":4002,"date":"2013-06-11T14:26:07","date_gmt":"2013-06-11T18:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=4002"},"modified":"2013-06-11T14:28:18","modified_gmt":"2013-06-11T18:28:18","slug":"senate-farm-bill-adds-rural-gigabit-amendment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/06\/senate-farm-bill-adds-rural-gigabit-amendment.html","title":{"rendered":"Senate Farm Bill adds Rural Gigabit Amendment"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nThe U.S. Senate just adopted an amendment to invest in gigabit\r\n(1,000 megabit per second) rural broadband networks.\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nOur local leaders need to lobby for the House to pass this,\r\nif they are serious about fast affordable Internet service for everyone here.\r\nSenator Leahy’s tiny Vermont, with the population of a single Congressional district,\r\n\r\nis already well along towards gigabit Internet<\/a>.\r\nOur three House members can help get south Georgia on the road to better\r\njobs, education, and health care through better Internet service.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nJennifer Reading wrote today for WCAX,\r\nLeahy’s high-speed internet amendment passes<\/a>,\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

\r\nWhat I want to make sure is that a rural area can compete the same\r\nway an urban area can. It’s actually the argument, the debate that\r\nwent on before I was even born about whether you had rural\r\nelectricity, rural telephone or not and if we hadn’t done that much\r\nof this country would be a wasteland,” said Sen. Leahy.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nDon’t we want that, too?\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nThe amendment, \r\n\r\nS.Amdt. 998 (Leahy) to S. 954: To establish a pilot program for gigabit Internet projects in rural areas.<\/a>\r\nOur Georgia Senator Isakson voted against it\r\nand Chambliss didn’t vote.\r\nDo they represent rural south Georgia?\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nPR from Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) yesterday,\r\n\r\nSenate Adopts Leahy Amendment To Invest in Gigabit Broadband Networks In Rural Areas<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\nWASHINGTON (MONDAY, June 10, 2013) — Senator Patrick Leahy\r\n(D-Vt.) Monday won passage of his amendment to the Farm Bill to\r\nestablish a pilot program within the Rural Utilities Service\r\nBroadband Program to invest in broadband projects offering\r\nultra-high speed gigabit Internet service in rural areas. Leahy’s\r\namendment was approved in a vote of 48 to 38, just before the Senate\r\ngave final passage to the Farm Bill in a vote of 66 to 27.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nLeahy said, “Next generation gigabit networks have the\r\npotential to transform rural areas. Rural America has so much to\r\noffer, but without the great equalizer of high-speed Internet, rural\r\ncommunities cannot live up to their full potential. Investing in\r\nnext generation networks now will help ensure that rural areas do\r\nnot fall even farther behind.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nLeahy’s pilot program will allow the Rural Utilities Service to\r\ninvest in up to five ultra-high speed networks in rural areas over\r\nthe next five years. Leahy believes Vermont would be an excellent\r\ncandidate for one of the projects. Gigabit Internet speeds are\r\napproximately 100 times faster than the average high-speed Internet\r\nconnection. High profile gigabit projects, including the Google\r\nFiber project in Kansas City, are bringing public awareness to the\r\ncapabilities of the next generation of broadband networks.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nLeahy is the most senior member of the Senate Agriculture Committee.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nIn the House,\r\nAustin Scott (GA-08) is on the\r\n\r\nAgriculture Committee<\/a>.\r\nSanford Bishop (GA-02) and Jack Kingston (GA-01) are on the\r\n\r\nHouse Appropriations Committee<\/a>\r\nand Bishop is on its\r\n\r\nSubcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, etc. Subcommittee<\/a>.\r\nIf they represent rural south Georgia, they need to help get the House\r\nto pass Sen. Leahy’s amendment as part of the Farm Bill.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The U.S. Senate just adopted an amendment to invest in gigabit (1,000 megabit per second) rural broadband networks. Our local leaders need to lobby for the House to pass this, if they are serious about fast affordable Internet service for everyone here. Senator Leahy’s tiny Vermont, with the population of a single Congressional district, is […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[14,15,8,2,41,132,22],"tags":[889,506,3200,8704,8705,8701,447,8699,8718,577,507,8741,1566,5981,8702,12,7,4999,42,2931,2897,1437,6],"class_list":["post-4002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-education","category-georgia","category-government","category-health-care","category-internet-access-speed","category-politics","tag-austin-scott","tag-broadband","tag-congress","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-georgia","tag-gigabit","tag-government","tag-health-care","tag-house","tag-internet","tag-internet-access-speed","tag-jack-kingston","tag-johnny-isakson","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-patrick-leahy","tag-rural","tag-sanford-bishop","tag-saxby-chambliss","tag-senate","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-12y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4002"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4006,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4002\/revisions\/4006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}