FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr told Breitbart News that Kamala Harris has connected “zero” Americans to the internet since being given the job, despite the $42.5 billion earmarked for it.
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) head Carr told Breitbart News in a written statement, “In 2021, Vice President Harris agreed to lead the Administration’s $42 billion plan to extend Internet to millions of Americans. She has now been leading that effort for over 1,000 days—1,001 days to be precise. So how many Americans have been connected over that stretch of time? Zero. After 1,001 days, not a single American has been connected to the Internet with those dollars.”
Harris was first tasked with leading the administration’s efforts to expand broadband access to millions of Americans in April 2021. During President Joe Biden’s 2021 State of the Union address, he announced he chose Harris to lead the effort “because I know it will get done.”
The $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, otherwise known as the infrastructure bill, contained a $42.5 billion fund to expand internet access.
The $42.5 billion was allocated to the Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program; Carr in June blamed the Biden-Harris administration’s failure to expand broadband access on its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies.
He said that it is now likely that construction on expanding broadband will not take place until next year.
“Indeed, not even one shovel worth of dirt has been turned. And it gets worse. The Administration recently confirmed that no construction projects will even start until sometime in 2025, at the earliest. That makes the program led by Vice President Harris the slowest-moving federal broadband effort in history, as far as I am aware,” Carr said.
Despite the lack of apparent success on a key issue for rural Americans, some battleground Democrats are running on expanding broadband.
Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) wrote in early August, “Expanding reliable broadband is key to building Montana’s economy and keeping rural communities connected. I’m glad the state’s latest proposal to do that has been approved under my bipartisan infrastructure law, and I’ll keep working to upgrade internet service across our state.”He added two days later, “Every Montana household deserves access to high-speed internet. My bipartisan infrastructure law is making that happen.”
Carr concluded, “There is no way to spin or sugarcoat this record. 1,001 days without even one construction project in sight is simply not getting the job done.”
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.
