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Amy Klobuchar wants broadband in every household by 2022

Amy Klobuchar wants broadband in every household by 2022

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She rolled out her trillion-dollar infrastructure plan today

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Presidential Candidate Amy Klobuchar Campaigns In Iowa
Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

In a blog post Thursday morning, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) announced that if elected president in 2020, she would implement a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan including a bold initiative to roll out high-speed internet to every household by 2022.

Klobuchar says she could accomplish this closing of the “urban-rural” digital divide by working to correct the current broadband maps, something that has been hotly criticized by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Klobuchar, specifically, has been an advocate for “dig once” policies that would push for ISPs to lay out internet infrastructure at the same time as federally funded roads are being paved.

“Broadband creates jobs, opens new economic opportunities, and allows America to compete and succeed in an increasingly digital world,” the campaign wrote. “Amy’s infrastructure plan will be her top budget priority, and she will work to get it done during the first year of her presidency.”

Klobuchar’s plan also mentions providing new incentives for internet service providers to upgrade their own networks in order to better serve rural America. It’s unclear what those incentives are.

Earlier this month, Klobuchar signed onto a bipartisan measure in the Senate that would require the Federal Communications Commission to launch an official rule-making to collect feedback on whether including government and consumer broadband coverage reporting to the mapping process could help build out more accurate coverage maps instead of relying on the current process which only uses data from the industry.