{"id":36446,"date":"2021-06-15T17:12:12","date_gmt":"2021-06-16T00:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=36446"},"modified":"2021-06-15T17:12:12","modified_gmt":"2021-06-16T00:12:12","slug":"40b-for-broadband","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=36446","title":{"rendered":"$40B FOR BROADBAND"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Legislation that would provide $40 billion to expand broadband access is expected to be introduced Tuesday in what will likely be one of the largest bipartisan proposals aimed at addressing the digital divide, <a href=\"https:\/\/click1.email.thehill.com\/ljqqsfzphmmrlflmrdjhhrqqhzrcmzmyynhpfwcmkzndnn_lngmjjgkgrmnkgwhwmmz.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/click1.email.thehill.com\/ljqqsfzphmmrlflmrdjhhrqqhzrcmzmyynhpfwcmkzndnn_lngmjjgkgrmnkgwhwmmz.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1623883603847000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHls3N7OMJGOGPKZu1FX9w32fF7hw\">The Washington Post reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The bill \u2014 the Broadband Reform and Investment to Drive Growth in the Economy Act, or Bridge Act \u2014 is being co-sponsored by Sens.\u00a0Michael Bennet\u00a0(D-Colo.),\u00a0Rob Portman\u00a0(R-Ohio) and\u00a0Angus King\u00a0(I-Maine). The senators cited the COVID-19 pandemic as a major reason for needing to expand broadband access.<\/p>\n<p>Bennet predicted that demand for easier access would continue to grow after the pandemic is over as hybrid work and school environments become more common.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it\u2019s very exciting as long as everyone in the country has access to broadband,\u201d Bennet told the Post. \u201cIf they don\u2019t, we\u2019re going to see the digital divide creating a greater divide than what already exists between kids living in poverty and more affluent kids.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Legislation that would provide $40 billion&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36446"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36447,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36446\/revisions\/36447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}