Advocating for universal broadband in Washington

As co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Smart Cities and a member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Rep. Yvette Clarke is invested in using technology and other innovative ways to advance the state’s ability to provide for its residents. Through her years of elected service, first as a New York City Council member and then in Congress, she has worked on finding ways to both leverage the use of technology and to protect constituents from it. Some of her previous legislation regarding this includes the Algorithmic Accountability Act of 2019, which required companies to study whether their tech is influenced by identity-based biases, and the Deepfakes Accountability Act of 2023, which aimed to protect national security from deepfake threats. Now, it’s a goal of hers to help the state become “completely wired” through universal broadband access. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You’re a co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Smart Cities. How would you define “smart cities” – and do you feel New York City fits that description?

I define smart cities as locales that are fully equipped with internet accessibility, that have developed capabilities to become more efficient and give access to citizens, businesses and entities within those locales that either manage transportation or climate change. It’s an all-inclusive, fully powered environment that is completely wired, for lack of a better term, and enables our citizenry to go about their daily activities in an efficient and climate-sensitive manner.

I would say that (New York has) the elements. We’re not fully connected, and that interconnectivity is a critical part of being a smart city. I want to really encourage us to look at the elements that we have to determine how, in the coming years, it can be fully integrated.

What legislation are you focusing on lately that relates to smart cities? Are there any top priorities or notable developments?

In the last Congress, I actually introduced a bill that would authorize $1.1 billion for having an enhanced federal coordination of smart city programs across the nation that include improved reporting and demonstration of the value and utility of smart city systems. The bill has not been introduced yet (in this Congress). It’s called the Smart Cities and Communities Act and I see that as being sort of the premier piece of legislation to address those issues. It would promote the use and expansion of smart city technologies.

How do you balance the implementation of new technologies that capture immense amounts of data with the risk of using it for surveillance or intruding on individual privacy?

That’s always a challenge. I think that one of the things we’ve been focused on in my office and, quite frankly, on the Hill, is the establishing a foundation of privacy legislation that would prohibit and establish guardrails around the use of data, the aggregation of data and provide for individuals in our society a right to private action should their data be breached. I think that once we have that framework in place, it’s much easier to deal with intrusions in exploitation of data but unfortunately, we’re not there yet.

How do you plan on using your seat on the Energy and Commerce Committee to address smart cities and universal broadband going forward?

We’ve been doing a lot of work in this space. Unfortunately, one of the major programs (the Affordable Connectivity Program) that we had in place to ensure that, one, broadband is affordable to all Americans was allowed to lapse in the last Congress. I would certainly want to advocate for that, because smart cities only work when everyone has access to the internet. Secondly, I think that is going to be critical to make sure that there’s a build-out. That program also made it possible for rural areas of the United States to have access to the internet, whether it’s the build-out of fiber, whether it’s access to satellite technology. But a fully integrated nationwide network, if you will, is going to be required for us to really fully explore and utilize the smart cities concepts.

How well is New York doing with universal broadband? How do we compare to other states?

I think New York City is probably doing a little bit better. We invested in the kiosk network that replaced our phone booths in the city of New York. And so there are ways in which communities do have access – it’s just not in every home. It’s a major inconvenience if you’re not near one of those kiosks, and you’re not wired or you can’t afford the service to really maximize on the technology as it exists. So that dumbs down the smart city to a large extent, because of the lack of accessibility that some New Yorkers have to the Wi-Fi or internet-based technologies that would integrate their participation in use.

Last year, before President Donald Trump was elected to a second term, the Affordable Connectivity Program was not extended – despite support from you and colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Why? Is there a lack of support for such funding in both parties that outweighs the bipartisan backing?

We have to take into account that in the House of Representatives, the Republicans were in the majority and a lot of their emphasis was to curb any appropriation so that they would, I guess, be put at an advantage should they retain the leadership of the House. I can tell you – industry, individuals, everyone loved this program and understood the implications for what it meant for so many communities across this nation, one, giving access at affordable rates to individuals within our civil society who can’t afford the internet service and, two, helping to build out (by) making it worthwhile for our our internet carriers to be able to build out infrastructure into sparsely populated areas where it’s a major cost to do the build-out. Nothing was said explicitly, but just based on the climate here in (Washington), D.C., and, at the time, we know that there was a lot of obstruction to appropriating funds for anything that wasn’t a priority primarily for the Republican Congress.

President Donald Trump has proposed ending the CHIPS and Science Act. Given that the law was passed in a bipartisan way, do you see Congress moving ahead with the president’s decision?

The CHIPS and Science Act was, is, a crossjurisdictional piece of legislation. We shared jurisdiction in the Energy and Commerce Committee with the Science and Technology Committee. We certainly need to build momentum, bipartisan support, that speaks to the fact that this is an authorized, appropriated and signed into law program that was signed under the last administration. There’s a lot of litigation going on right now having to do with this administration, under Donald Trump, flying in the face of laws passed by the Congress. We have to step up and assert our authority. There’s three branches of government, and the Congress appropriates funds for spending (and) speaks to the intent of that spending, and that has to be abided by the executive branch. We’re seeing a real flying in the face of the Constitution where that’s concerned, on multiple levels, and I anticipate that there will be action taken to address this sort of cavalier dismissal of the will of the Congress through the CHIPS and Science Act.