{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.barrasso.senate.gov/newsroom-news-releases-barrasso-sinema-introduce-bill-to-increase-access-to-broadband-on-federal-land/", "Barrasso, Sinema Introduce Bill to Increase Access to Broadband on Federal Land", "2023-09-20", "2023", "2023-09", "Republican", "Senate", "WY", "John Barrasso", "B001261", "www.barrasso.senate.gov", "barrasso", "https://www.barrasso.senate.gov/newsroom/news-releases/", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, DC \u2013 Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) introduced legislation to increase access to high-speed internet on federal land.\n\nPermitting for broadband projects and telecommunications infrastructure on federal land can take up to 48 months, causing significant impacts on rural communities. These delays jeopardize broadband projects, increase costs, and limit access to high-speed internet and vital telehealth services.\n\nThe CLOSE THE GAP Act will modernize and streamline the permitting process to help expand access to high-speed internet and close the digital divide in rural communities.\n\n\u201cAccess to fast and reliable internet is critical to keeping rural communities, small businesses and emergency services running smoothly. In Wyoming, half of the land is owned by the federal government. There is a significant gap in internet service and in some cases no service at all,\u201d said Senator Barrasso. \u201cIt shouldn\u2019t take years for internet service providers to get approval to install or make simple repairs on federal land. Streamlining the permitting process is a vital step in closing the digital divide in rural communities in Wyoming and across the West.\u201d\n\n\u201cStreamlining the permitting process for broadband infrastructure allows Arizona to deploy high-speed internet services using historic funding I secured in my bipartisan infrastructure law more efficiently and effectively \u2013 connecting loved ones, making education and telehealth more accessible, and fueling economic opportunities for small businesses,\u201d said Senator Sinema.\n\nThis legislation has received support from Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr, NTCA \u2013 The Rural Broadband Association, NCTA \u2013 The Internet & Television Association, USTelecom, CTIA, Competitive Carriers Association, WTA \u2013 Advocates for Rural Broadband, The Permitting Institute, T-Mobile, DISH Network, and The Fiber Broadband Association.\n\n\u201cI want to applaud Senator Barrasso and Senator Sinema for their strong leadership and smart set of permitting reforms that would accelerate high-speed Internet builds across rural and remote parts of the country. For too long, a cumbersome and outdated permitting process has delayed and deterred broadband builds on Federal lands\u2014areas where installing Internet infrastructure is vital to reaching those communities that remain on the wrong side of the digital divide. I have had the chance to visit with broadband builders in Wyoming and hear directly from them about the broadband infrastructure projects that are laying fallow due to a slow and opaque process for building on federal lands. This legislation would end these delays by streamlining and modernizing this permitting process. I hope this legislation becomes law soon considering the billions of dollars that are now available to deploy broadband to unserved areas\u2014funds that would otherwise get caught up in red tape.\u201d \u2013 Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr\n\nBackground:\n\nIn order to streamline the permitting process for broadband infrastructure, The CLOSE THE GAP Act:\n\n\u2022 Requires federal land management agencies to issue new regulations that would streamline the process for broadband applications on federal land.\n\n\u2022 Promotes online application tracking for broadband infrastructure projects through the existing Permitting Dashboard established under the FAST Act.\n\n\u2022 Improves public safety on federal land by directing the establishment of categorical exclusions for improvements to existing infrastructure that would improve public safety capacity.\n\n\u2022 Provides exemptions from NEPA for broadband infrastructure that resides on land that has previously received an approved permit to install broadband infrastructure.\n\n\u2022 Provides exemptions from NEPA and NHPA requirements for projects that involve collocation of new radios on existing towers, and removal or replacement of radios on existing towers.\n\n\u2022 Establishes online portals for submission of Standard Form-299 applications.\n\n\u2022 Establishes a special account at Treasury for each land management agency to deposit cost recovery fees for their own use related specifically to broadband deployment.\n\n\u2022 Establishes a working group between each federal land management agency to periodically meet to coordinate and expedite the review of applications.\n\nFull text of the legislation can be found here.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:35:26Z"]], "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://www.barrasso.senate.gov/newsroom-news-releases-barrasso-sinema-introduce-bill-to-increase-access-to-broadband-on-federal-land/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9164460934698582, "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"}