Biden-Harris Admin Threw Over $40 Billion At An Internet Buildout — Three Years Later Not A Single Project Is Underway
President Joe Biden’s 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) earmarked tens of billions of taxpayer dollars for expanding broadband internet, yet, more than three years later, not a single project is underway.
The $1.2 trillion law earmarked over $42 billion to provide internet access in unserved, mostly rural areas, with Biden once describing the initiative as “not unlike what Roosevelt did with electricity.” However, not a single project funded by the initiative has broken ground, with federal subsidies not expected to reach projects until 2025, largely due to a slew of regulatory hurdles, such as requirements for internet providers to participate in green initiatives and employ unionized workforces.
“In 2021, Kamala Harris became the ‘Broadband Czar’,” Republican South Dakota Sen. John Thune wrote in a post on X on Sep. 24. “Three years and $42 billion later, not one person has been connected to the internet under the BEAD [Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment] program.”
Another challenge comes from applicants having to demonstrate how the internet plans they provide using the federally subsidized infrastructure will be affordable for Americans with household incomes at or below 200% of the poverty line. Virginia’s application process, for example, took more than 10 months due to a dispute between the state and federal government over a price cap for low-cost plans.
The White House’s pace of implementation has drawn scrutiny from Republican lawmakers, with the House Energy and Commerce Committee launching an investigation into the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s handling of the initiative. The broadband expansion program has also drawn comparisons to the Biden-Harris administration’s electric vehicle (EV) charger expansion initiative, that, as of April 2024, had built just seven stations despite the $7.5 billion the November 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law allocated it.
The EV charger expansion program was delayed in part due to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) requirements, with the Department of Transportation saying applicants should promise to engage in “intentional outreach to underserved communities” by hosting “neighborhood block parties.”
“The Biden Admin has been layering a partisan political agenda on top of this $42.45B program — a liberal wish list that has nothing to do with connecting Americans,” Brendan Carr, the former head of the Federal Communications Commission wrote in a June X post. “Climate change mandates, tech biases, DEI requirements, favoring government-run networks + more.”
The U.S. Department of Commerce did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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The Biden/Harris administration is the most wasteful, ineffective and inflationary government we have ever seen. That they have spent 42 Billion for non-existent internet is like their 7.5 billion that has built exactly 7 EV charging stations. And what’s the 60 billion dollars in their laughably called “Inflation Reduction Act” for “environmental equity”. Another money wasting and inflation causing bill that Biden now admits has nothing to do with reducing inflation but is actually the largest “Green” spending bill in American history. And the same “equity” nonsense that has destroyed our nation’s Secret Service and installed a useless FEMA director that changed FEMA’s goal to make “Equity the number one goal in emergency management”. I guess that’s whats allowed them to run out of money by diverting almost their entire budget to funding illegal immigration. This administration is a joke and a disaster that it actually Treasonous. Why? Because the first duty of every President and Vice President is to protect their citizens; not contribute to killing them and raping them by letting into the country 600,000 known criminals, including violent gangs, cartels, drug and sex traffickers, known terrorists and an invasion by 12-14 million poor unvetted, unvaccinated illegals. Destroying the U.S. as a sovereign nation while sending 160 billion dollars to protect “the sovereignty and territorial integrity” of Ukraine in a never ending proxy war against Russia that may actually start WWIII. And, oh yeah, since they have been in office, they have killed a quarter of a million America citizens with the Chinese made fentanyl flowing across that open border. Have you had enough yet America??