Sec. 2. Findings

461 words·~2 min read·/bill/116/hr/6819/ih/section-2

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Congress finds the following: The immediate grant of emergency special temporary authority of available spectrum that will efficiently support temporary wireless broadband networks and allow Indian Tribes to provide Tribal members with wireless broadband service over Tribal lands or Hawaiian Home Lands during the COVID–19 crisis due to the increased demand for telecommunications and disproportionate impacts of the COVID–19 pandemic in Indian Country is essential. Reservations are the most digitally disconnected areas in the United States that lack basic access to broadband and wireless services at rates comparable to, and in some cases lower than, third-world countries.

In 2018, the Government Accountability Office and the Federal Communications Commission reported that only 65 percent of American Indian and Alaska Natives (AI/ANs) living on Tribal lands had access to fixed broadband services, and only 68 percent of AI/AN households on rural Tribal lands had telephone services. This is a stark comparison to only 8 percent of the national average that lacks access to fixed broadband services. Indian Tribes have previously encountered substantial barriers to accessing broadband and other communications services on Tribal lands to deploy telecommunication services for the safety and well-being of Tribal members and to decrease the alarming rates of unnecessary loss of lives that AI/ANs disproportionately experience, especially through the lack of access to health care services and emergency resources, as demonstrated during the COVID–19 pandemic that continues to disproportionately impact Indian Country.

Indian Tribes’ lack of access to broadband services on Tribal lands and Hawaiian Home Lands during the COVID–19 pandemic further highlights the digital divide in Indian Country. The Government Accountability Office found that health information technology systems at the Indian Health Service rank as the Federal Government’s third-highest need for agency system modernization, since 50 percent of Indian Health Service facilities depend on outdated circuit connections based on one or two TI circuit lines (3 Mbps), creating slower response times than any other health facility system in the United States.

A 2018 Tribal health reform comment filed with the Federal Communications Commission has further stated that approximately 1.5 million people living on Tribal lands lack access to broadband and, of the 75 percent of rural Indian Health Service facilities, many still lack reliable broadband networks for American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/ANs) to access telehealth or clinical health care services, which is a critical need in the most geographically isolated areas of the country with some of the highest poverty rates, and lack of access to reliable transportation.

The Bureau of Indian Education has stated that recent estimates from 142 out of 174 schools have indicated that approximately 15 to 95 percent of students do not have access to internet services at home depending on Bureau school location and limitations on data caps during the COVID–19 crisis.