Gov. Cooper touts importance of high-speed internet, improving infrastructure at National Governors Association meeting
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper emphasized the importance of strong infrastructure in attracting businesses to North Carolina and across the country during a Thursday afternoon panel discussion at the National Governors Association’s annual meeting.
Infrastructure is the second-most important factor to companies when choosing where to relocate, behind workforce availability, said Cooper, who is a Democrat. He focused his portion of the discussion on the state’s efforts to expand internet access across the state.
“Right now, we have a generational opportunity to invest in infrastructure across this country,” Cooper said. “We've had plans before about things that we needed to do to connect every house and business to high speed internet to fix our roads and bridges, expand our ports and airports. Now we actually have the funding to do it.
Cooper highlighted fast-growing North Carolina’s receipt of about $1 billion from the American Rescue Plan to help expand internet access. North Carolina is also due to receive about $1.5 billion from the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program (BEAD Program). The program will distribute $42.45 billion across the country to expand high-speed internet access.
“We know that high-speed internet is a critical part of infrastructure,” Cooper said.
Cooper also touted the news earlier this week of CNBC naming North Carolina as the “Top State” for business for the second consecutive year.
Gov. Kevin Stitt, R-Oklahoma; Exelon President and CEO Calvin Butler; National Grid New England President Steve Woerner and Verizon Wireless Regional Vice President of state public policy and government affairs Anthony Lewis joined Cooper on the panel.
Stitt said Thursday the permitting process takes too long across the country, mentioning agency overlap, bureaucracy and litigation. Cooper agreed with Stitt.
“We do have permitting issues and challenges,” Cooper said.
Lewis said if a project is not chosen by a government, the first thing the company does is litigate.
“Litigation process is used to get access to information that they otherwise wouldn’t have access to,” Lewis said.
The group mentioned the possibility of litigation reform.
“Taking the first solution as litigation cannot be the way we move forward to ensure the people that need this most get it,” Butler said of expanding internet access.
Collaboration between state and federal politicians and regulators, as well as the private sector, is critical in breaking up regulatory gridlock preventing infrastructure projects.
“As we meet this challenge of infrastructure, there may not be a group more important in this country than the nation’s governors right now because we have the opportunity to bring in governments, private businesses, the federal government and regulators to get this done,” Cooper said. “We have an unprecedented opportunity here to get this done efficiently, effectively and quickly as possible.”
Video: Click or tap here to watch Thursday's panel on infrastructure projects
