---
kind: "section"
citation: "47 U.S.C. § 1722"
title: "47"
title_heading: "Telecommunications"
number: "1722"
heading: "Sense of Congress"
release: "119-102"
date: "2026-07-12"
url: "https://uscodex.org/usc/47/1722"
units:
  - "Chapter 16 — Broadband Access"
  - "Subchapter II — Digital Equity Act of 2021"
---

# §1722. Sense of Congress


It is the sense of Congress that—

- (1) a broadband connection and [digital literacy](/usc/47/1721.md?p=12) are increasingly critical to how individuals—
  - (A) participate in the society, economy, and civic institutions of the United States; and
  - (B) access health care and essential services, obtain education, and build careers;
- (2) digital exclusion—
  - (A) carries a high societal and economic cost;
  - (B) materially harms the opportunity of an individual with respect to the economic success, educational achievement, positive health outcomes, social inclusion, and civic engagement of that individual; and
  - (C) exacerbates existing wealth and income gaps, especially those experienced by [covered populations](/usc/47/1721.md?p=8);
- (3) achieving [digital equity](/usc/47/1721.md?p=10) for all people of the United States requires additional and sustained investment and research efforts;
- (4) the Federal Government, as well as [State](/usc/47/1721.md?p=21), tribal, territorial, and local governments, have made social, legal, and economic obligations that necessarily extend to how the citizens and residents of those governments access and use the internet; and
- (5) achieving [digital equity](/usc/47/1721.md?p=10) is a matter of social and economic justice and is worth pursuing.

## Source credit

(Pub. L. 117–58, div. F, title III, § 60303, Nov. 15, 2021, 135 Stat. 1212.)