 Ms. Clark you're recognized for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank our ranking member for convening this important hearing Thank you to our witnesses for their testimony and for joining us today greetings to everyone as The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the need for accessible broadband connectivity in both urban and rural areas It's critical for undeserved and marginalized populations to stay connected to essential online resources like education remote learning employment remote work healthcare services telehealth and As well as narrowing the digital divide many in these communities use mobile devices to Participate in online activities such as virtual learning which often requires high-speed network connections that aren't always accessible and or available my first question is for Miss miss guys, excuse me. Mr. Geiss. Mr. Geiss You've noted that a primary focus on public interest needs is Necessary to fulfill the growing demand for spectrum resources when competing ideas for public interest are at play How can we ensure that spectrum policy decisions made in the public interest do not further entrench inequitable spectrum access for historically undeserved communities Representative Clark, it's a great question and thank you for your leadership in this area I know that we've worked together on a number of efforts to ensure that these communities get served It's critical. It's critical that we focus our policies on ensuring that we don't leave folks behind that We know traditionally get left behind and so to advance those initiatives, you know, we've suggested digital literacy As one way to reach those communities making certain that they have the skills and and the tools necessary to get that access We're obviously looking at all the money that Congress has put forward on a bipartisan basis To drive investment into these lower income communities in our in our rural and urban areas As a way to address that And we're also looking at the at the authority that the FCC gave The Congress gave the FCC on a bipartisan basis to look at past digital discrimination to make certain that we bridge these gaps Quick question. How do we create a maintenance of effort? as oftentimes we do these one-shot deals and You know, it wanes over time and these communities have been systemically discriminated against. Yeah, how do we? create within The dynamics before us a maintenance of effort. Yeah, that's that's that's a great great question as well You know, we've and in one context we have a universal service program that provides continued funding in this context You know, we should look at auction revenues. This is a source of funding that is pretty substantial Where we could endow a foundation With some of these revenues a portion of it and say to them here is your mission Make certain that these communities needs are addressed make certain that we focus those efforts So we'd love to work with your office on on trying to bridge that Absolutely, and as a follow-up in your testimony you explained that revenue generated from spectrum auctions could support public interest needs That being said should we also be looking at how? We might spectrum Reallocations and auctions themselves be constructed to promote digital inclusion and increase access to the affordability of 5g connectivity for unserved and underserved communities Yes, absolutely. I mean that's that that is the game here, right? We need to make certain that we're getting everybody all Americans connected and figuring out the tools to help them as critical