Building a Brighter and Safer Future

As families across the country celebrate this year's graduates, the FCC is advancing initiatives that will help deliver a brighter and safer future for every community. In today's classrooms, connected devices are everywhere-nearly 90 percent of public schools now provide them-yet students are losing up to 38 minutes every hour to digital distractions. And there is a concerning trend in the data-showing that reading and math scores are plummeting across the country while screen time has been rising. This month's agenda reflects our commitment to deploying the world's best networks, strengthening public safety, and ensuring our classrooms are geared toward student success.

First up, we will consider a notice of proposed rulemaking that advances our Build America Agenda by focusing on permitting reform. Specifically, the NPRM looks at Section 253 of the Communications Act to cut red tape and accelerate the buildout of wireline infrastructure.

Second, we will consider a notice of proposed rulemaking and further notice that looks at the surge in screen time for school kids and aims to ensure efficient use of E-Rate dollars. The FCC has played a role over the years in subsidizing connections to schools. Today, our E-Rate program spends around $2.5 billion a year. And a lot of new data is pouring in about the use of screen time for students. Through this item, we take a top-to-bottom review of the program and ensure it is supporting the types of good educational outcomes that Congress had in mind when it started the program 30 years ago. The item also asks whether the FCC's current interpretation of the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) is the best reading and seeks comment on actions to further strengthen E-Rate program integrity, including increasing oversight over consultants.

Third, we will consider an order and further notice that builds on our work to improve public safety communications by strengthening 911 reliability. Calls to 911 should always go through. This item will modernize the FCC's reliability rules for an all-IP environment to reduce the risk of future outages and ensure that entities whose operations are essential to 911 call delivery have the necessary reliability and redundancy measures in place.

Next, we will consider an order and further notice that would require targeted cybersecurity improvements for the nation's emergency alert systemand make other improvements to EAS and WEA. The item would adopt measures to help protect against hijacking by cybercriminals and our nation's adversaries and make other targeted improvements to EAS and WEA, including improving geographic accuracy of alerts, improving the detection and blocking of duplicate alerts, and removing outdated and unnecessary alerting requirements to help encourage broader participation in alerting.

Finally, we will consider an order and further notice that will accelerate the buildout of submarine cables, the unsung heroes of the global internet. The order enhances submarine cable security and adopts a range of measures to streamline and accelerate the deployment of secure submarine cable infrastructure by trusted providers who agree to high security standards. These measures will bring the Build America Agenda under the ocean.

As Chairman, I am committed to advancing policies that will build a brighter and safer future for American families. This month's open meeting items move us closer to that goal and I look forward to working with my colleagues at the FCC to continue that progress.