Senate Commerce Report Reveals White House's Bidenomics' High-Speed Internet Plan Connecting Wealthy Enclaves

Press Release

"A recurring theme in our political system is the government's habit of throwing taxpayer dollars at problems without ever solving them. One costly example is access to high-speed Internet. As the Internet has become a part of daily life, there have been bipartisan calls for the government to ensure that no one is left unconnected. Yet even after billions in spending by numerous federal agencies over two decades, many Americans still lack access to high-speed broadband.

In June, the Biden administration allocated $42.45 billion in Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) funding among states--the largest single pot of federal broadband spending in our country's history. Biden officials at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) made these allocations despite repeated requests from lawmakers and communities across the country to first improve the data underlying NTIA's funding decisions.1
I also joined colleagues in asking officials to eliminate the social agenda that was attached to this infrastructure program--extralegal provisions not found in any statute that raise the cost of projects and reduce the number of Americans who will benefit.2

Biden officials largely dismissed these concerns, claiming that BEAD allocations would "make sure everyone in America has access to high-speed Internet and our digital society."3 Now that NTIA has made BEAD allocations, however, it appears that the program will waste billions of dollars in duplicative subsidies and divert funds away from truly unserved rural areas. This report analyzes the current state of BEAD funding, on a per-beneficiary basis and in the context of three other recent federal programs that already doled out $17 billion for broadband deployment. It offers three key findings:

1. The Biden administration's BEAD allocations provide ten states and territories more than $10,000 per unserved location--including a galling $547,254 per unserved location in Washington, D.C.

2. Because the BEAD program did not consider whether a location would be served in the near
future through funding from a previous federal program, it allocated funding to over five million locations that are already being funded by other federal programs. If funding from other programs had been considered, seven states would have had zero unserved locations. As a result, the billions in taxpayer dollars sent to these states will be diverted to purposes other than connecting unserved Americans.

3. The Biden administration's technology bias against non-fiber broadband will drive up costs by billions of dollars and likely deprive some communities of any broadband access at all. Further, some of the "unserved" locations that will receive taxpayer-subsidized fiber-to-the-home service include mansions, beachfront resort communities, and mountain vacation homes.

Forty-two billion dollars is more than enough money to deliver broadband to every American. Will it
succeed in doing so? In light of these findings, count me skeptical. This report should serve as a call to action for the Biden administration and the states to ensure BEAD dollars are not funneled to duplicative and wasteful purposes, and instead are used to solve the nation's connectivity challenges once and for all."

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