Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr is speaking out about the Biden administration’s mishandling and implementation of the $42 billion broadband program.
A program led by Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ nominee for president and already carrying immigration baggage.
Carr and other officials testified about the administration’s policies Thursday before the Oversight and Accountability Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment program is the largest single investment in broadband infrastructure in American history, costing taxpayers $42 billion. It was part of the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021.
“The Biden-Harris administration’s implementation of this $42 billion BEAD program is wired to fail,” Carr testified.
Carr testified about traveling state to state and meeting with broadband builders, public safety officials, local leaders, and community members to ask questions and learn what’s needed to provide a reliable, high-speed connection.
According to the U.S. Department of Commerce website, the Broadband Equity, Access, And Deployment Program was to expand high-speed internet access by funding planning, infrastructure deployment, and adoption programs in all 50 states and other territories.
While the Biden administration hailed the move as “bringing broadband to rural America today,” Carr said it has been 1,039 days since the program was signed into law. Harris was tapped as an oversight leader.
Carr continued that the Biden administration planned on approving all of the state plans at the beginning of spring this year.
“That has not happened,” he said.
In his testimony, he agreed with a publication saying the administration will have nothing to show for the $42 billion program come Election Day.
Carr says the days without action are not without consequence.
“There is significance to the passage of time,” he said. “For one, each day or month that the BEAD program falls further behind is another day or month that Americans remain on the wrong side of the digital divide.”
He said the delay in program milestones will complicate how the state and federal bodies implement funding programs.
Pennsylvania was to receive $1.16 billion of the funding to connect roughly 280,000 homes and businesses, while the back-and-forth with the state of Virginia delayed efforts even further to do the same.
“Targeted social outcomes” were also mentioned in the written testimony, highlighting the Biden administration’s decision to promote its hiring preferences through diversity, equity, and inclusion requirements.
“This election is the best example of why you all are so afraid of diversity, equity, and inclusion because then you can’t have a simple-minded under qualified white man somehow end up ascending,” said Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas. “Instead you got to pay attention to the qualified Black woman.”
The testimony stated that while broadband builds are underway today with money the Biden administration has made available, they have their own set of issues.
Carr said the bottom line is that the administration has “put its thumb on the scale in favor of extraneous political goals that have more to do with ideology than they do with getting people connected.”
He said the law is tech-neutral, prohibited rate regulation, and no government-run networks over private sector preferences.
Carr said Congress “did not require” the administration to have evaluations on internet builds based on diversity, equity and inclusion, or in the climate change agenda.
