800-Plus Groups Seek Broadband Shutoff Moratorium, Funding
More than 800 groups urged congressional leaders Monday to include language in the next COVID-19 stimulus bill for “a nationwide moratorium on the shut-offs” of broadband and “all other essential utilities” during the pandemic. The groups pressed leaders to “invest…
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significant stimulus funds into long-term solutions” to “systemic issues driving these all-too-common utility injustices,” including “percentage-of-income payment plans” for broadband and other services. Several Democratic lawmakers want future COVID-19 legislation to fund broadband and other infrastructure projects (see 2003260063). The shut-off moratorium is needed because the epidemic “is resulting in the widespread loss of jobs that is unprecedented in modern history,” Free Press Action Policy Director Dan Floberg and leaders of other groups wrote. Appropriations should come in the form of “substantial funding for emergency broadband connectivity program, aimed at connecting low-income families and those experiencing job and income loss due to the pandemic." Other signers include Access Now, Communications Workers of America, MediaJustice, the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, National Hispanic Media Coalition, New America’s Open Technology Institute and Public Knowledge.