In the 2021 $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Joe Biden set aside a grandiose plan to bring broadband internet to the entire country. The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program was funded with $42 billion and a promise to bring the magical internet to rubes in the sticks.
“It is going to help our kids and our business to succeed in the 21st century,” Biden said in his address on April 29, 2021. “I’m asking the vice president to lead this effort because I know it will get done."
NO! PLEASE, NO!
Too late, Biden gave Kamala Harris her head on the project, which she promptly lost and never found.
Four years later, not a single customer has been connected to broadband as a result of the money spent from the BEAD program. Not one state has had its plan for an "internet for all" approved by any federal agency or department. The $42 billion has been allocated, but states have yet to spend any of the money on connecting customers.
If this sounds familiar, it's because the BEAD program mirrors the $7.5 billion set aside for 500,000 EV chargers funded in the same Infrastructure bill as the broadband boondoggle, only to see eight charging stations built in 2.5 years.
In the case of the BEAD program, states and contractors are buried in red tape and forced to deal with typical woke BS. "The Administration has also stipulated hiring preferences for 'underrepresented' groups, including 'aging individuals,' prisoners, racial, religious and ethnic minorities, 'Indigenous and Native American persons,' 'LGBTQI+ persons,' and 'persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality,'" reported the Wall Street Journal at the time.
The Trump administration is seeking to streamline the process and get things moving much faster.
The overhaul plans, as seen by The Free Press, show that the Trump administration will adopt what it calls a “tech-neutral approach,” allowing states to choose lower-cost technologies, such as low Earth orbit satellites like Elon Musk’s Starlink and Amazon’s Project Kuiper, to meet the program’s coverage requirements.
The changes also would eliminate a requirement that internet providers offer what is known as a low-cost plan. Under Biden’s BEAD Program, the rules suggested a monthly cost of $30 or less. Technology industry groups complained that the $30 fixed rate was “completely unmoored from the economic realities of deploying and operating networks in the highest cost, hardest-to-reach areas that BEAD funding is precisely designed to reach.”
The NTIA also plans to roll back a policy that required states to prioritize contracting with minority- and women-owned businesses, as well as involve “diverse stakeholders” in the proposal process.
The administration is also directing states to "make use of” data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to assess “current and projected climate conditions and risks.”
“By applying a technology-neutral approach, we will achieve the greatest savings for the American people at the locations that are most expensive to serve,” Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Acting Administrator Adam Cassady told The Free Press.
It will take a while to get businesses out from under the stupid regulatory burdens that were imposed on them by Biden's brigade of woke regulators. The fantastic thing is that it's expected that these changes to BEAD will result in people getting connected at far less cost to taxpayers and in a far shorter time.
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