Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R-N.D.) said Tuesday it’s “unfortunate” that House Republican leadership pulled a bill from floor consideration this week that would speed up broadband permitting.
House GOP leaders yanked the American Broadband Deployment Act on Monday as it faced opposition from local government groups.
“I regret that that happened, that they didn’t feel like they were part of the conversation,” Fedorchak said during a Punchbowl News event. “But I think that is definitely fixable.”
Fedorchak also addressed the ongoing Department of Homeland Security shutdown and touted legislation she’s co-sponsoring that would withhold pay from lawmakers during a funding lapse.
“Shutting down the government should have consequences,” Fedorchak said. “We should feel them personally, because we’re the only people who can fix it.”
Technology innovation. Fedorchak said China is a country of builders, while the United States has become a nation of lawyers. The North Dakota Republican cited the long permitting process as a factor that’s hampering U.S. innovation.
“We’re always going to have to be ahead on the tech side with China, and so we have to get permitting reform in place,” Fedorchak said.
As the United States grapples with increased energy and broadband needs to power AI, Fedorchak said the country should take advantage of its existing resources, including power lines and transmission lines, to meet those demands.
“We should be using everything that we have,” Fedorchak said. “We shouldn’t be retiring power generation right now. We need it all.”
Fireside chat. Ajit Pai, president and CEO of CTIA, called on Congress to urgently address permitting reform, saying it should be a bipartisan issue.
“A big part of it is that we can’t get the physical infrastructure in place to enable us to have better services and better products,” Pai said.
Pai also said artificial intelligence and wireless networks are “inextricably intertwined,” especially as the technology progresses with agentic and physical AI.
“When it comes to AI development, we want to make sure we get in place not just the core building blocks of AI infrastructure,” Pai added. “But making sure that we allow wireless networks to be able to carry a lot of that AI traffic.”
You can watch the full conversation here.
