{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://hurd.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/lawmakers-push-include-digital-infrastructure-plans", "Lawmakers Push to Include Digital in Infrastructure Plans", "2016-12-16", "2016", "2016-12", "Republican", "House", "TX", "Will Hurd", "H001073", "hurd.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "As rebuilding the country\u2019s infrastructure looks to be an area President-elect Donald Trump and Democrats can agree on, lawmakers from both parties are trying to make sure the conversation includes digital infrastructure.\u00a0\nCalifornia Democratic Rep.\u00a0Ted Lieu\u00a0said digital infrastructure is as vital to the country as\u00a0roads and bridges.\n\u201cFrom hardening our electric grid to making sure we put broadband out in all communities in the U.S., we need to invest in digital capacity as much as in concrete,\u201d\u00a0Lieu said.\nTexas Republican Rep.\u00a0Will Hurd\u00a0said\u00a0increased access to broadband can help improve health care.\n\u201cWhen we want to talk about telemedicine, if you don\u2019t have cell phone service or broadband, you are going to have some problems,\u201d Hurd said.\nHurd, whose district encompasses nearly half of the U.S.-Mexico border, also said fiber optic cables could improve homeland security.\n\u201cThere\u2019s some real opportunities to use that on the border. Using that tech on fiber tech is more effective than building a physical wall,\u201d he said.\nLieu has a similar take:\u00a0\u201cTo secure America we don\u2019t need physical walls, we need firewalls.\u201d\nAccusations by the intelligence community that Russia was responsible for interfering in the U.S. elections highlight the need for hardening security systems.\nLieu pointed to the 2013 hacking of a dam in New York\u00a0by Iranians as an example of vulnerabilities.\nTrump has proposed an \u201cAmerica\u2019s Infrastructure First\u201d policy that would be funded by public money and private investment to rebuild and modernize the country\u2019s transportation, water, electricity, telecommunications and security systems, and Democrats have\u00a0signaled that they would be willing to work with him on a package.\nHurd said he has not yet spoken with Trump\u2019s incoming administration\u00a0about their plans, but the House Homeland Security Committee, on which he and Lieu serve, is working on legislation.\nModernizing the country\u2019s\u00a0infrastructure will\u00a0have a big price tag. Lieu points to the American Society of Civil Engineers\u2019\u00a0Report Card for America\u2019s Infrastructure\u00a0that\u00a0shows the U.S. would need to invest $3.6 trillion by 2020 just to get a passing grade.\nBut conservatives are already warning the incoming president that they won\u2019t allow whatever package he proposes to add to the deficit, which will mean cutting other funding to pay for it.\nLieu is hoping Trump can sell the investment to his own party.\n\u201cDonald Trump has said that he is a businessman,\u201d he\u00a0said. \u201cIf all companies had to cut something to invest, we\u2019d have no economic progress.\u201d\nLarry Downes, project director at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy, said a digital infrastructure plan would\u00a0need a more viable source of funding than programs like the Lifeline program, which provides phones to low-income users\u00a0and is funded through a tax on the voice call part of phone bills.\n\u201cThe most direct way is a tax on broadband service,\u201d he said,\u00a0but that\u2019s a tough sell politically.\nHurd also suggested\u00a0the North American Development Bank, an institution capitalized by both the U.S. and Mexican governments, as a potential model for financing projects.\n\u201cThey do a mix of public and private funds to do many of the projects that they sponsor and work on,\u201d he said.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://hurd.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/lawmakers-push-include-digital-infrastructure-plans"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.85440294444561, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}