Dear John,

          When I was a kid, my parents moved my family from Myrtle Creek to Roseburg, and then finally to the outskirts of Portland chasing work.  It’s a familiar story -- mills closed, jobs were lost, families were uprooted.  Rural communities are especially dependent on key economic infrastructure, like mills, and today, access to high-speed internet.

          I’ve been battling for big investments in rural broadband so families can find economic opportunity at home, and not need to move away for a chance to earn a better life.  I hear about it all across Oregon.  Reliable internet service has the power to enhance educational opportunities, make it easier to connect to health care, and give small businesses access to bigger markets -- making it an essential tool for our communities’ well-being and economic growth. But building and maintaining broadband infrastructure comes with steep upfront costs and smaller customer markets in rural communities, meaning private companies are less likely to complete high-quality broadband projects.

          That’s why I’ve been fighting in the Senate to help Oregon’s rural communities secure the investments they need to access high-speed internet service. Specifically, I’ve used my position as the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee funding the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), to secure more than $1.5 billion for the USDA’s ReConnect program, which is designed to help rural communities finance broadband infrastructure installation and maintenance.

          This grant program is now helping to install 89 miles of fiber in rural Grant and Wheeler counties.  But overall, USDA is falling short in deploying these funds and working with communities to get rural broadband where it is needed. I’ve heard repeatedly from Oregon’s rural community leaders about application and eligibility hurdles that are creating unnecessary bureaucratic roadblocks and urgently need to be addressed. That’s why I recently sent two letters to the USDA -- one with a bipartisan group of nine senators, and another along with my colleagues from the Oregon delegation, Senator Wyden, Congresswoman Bonamici, and Congressmen DeFazio and Schrader -- to urge the agency to correct these issues so more communities in Oregon can access the grants.

          I’m thankful for the valuable input from constituents and local leaders about the ReConnect application process. I’m going to keep putting the pressure on the grant administrators to fix them so we can meet the mission of the program: to put critical broadband in every corner of Oregon. 

All my best,
Jeff