Sen. John Thune (R-SD), the Senate Republican whip, led a letter with Senate Republicans on Wednesday to Vice President Kamala Harris, charging that her job as the “broadband czar” is as disastrous as her job as the “border czar,” in a letter exclusively obtained by Breitbart News.
Thune, who has served as the former chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee and is the ranking member on the Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Media, and Broadband, wrote to Harris about her failed leadership to expand broadband access to Americans.
Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Ted Budd (R-NC), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Debbie Fischer (R-NE), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Roger Wicker (R-MS), and Todd Young (R-IN) signed onto Thune’s letter to Harris.
“It appears that your performance as ‘broadband czar’ has mirrored your performance as ‘border czar,’ marked by poor management and a lack of effectiveness despite significant federal broadband investments and your promises to deliver broadband to rural areas,” Thune and the Senate Republicans wrote.
Senate Republican Letter to VP Harris by jmanship on Scribd
Breitbart News has catalogued how Harris’s progress in expanding broadband access has been bogged down by progressive mandates.
Tucked inside the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is a $42.5 billion fund to dramatically expand internet access across America. Otherwise known as the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, the program has failed to connect one person, even though the bill was passed 1,037 days ago.
During President Joe Biden’s 2021 State of the Union address, Biden tapped Vice President Kamala Harris to lead the effort “because I know it will get done.”
Thune cited Harris’s April 2021 statement, which said, “We brought electricity to rural America in the 1930s, and we can bring broadband to rural America today. The American Jobs Plan will make that happen.”As Breitbart News has reported, the BEAD program has been weighed down by progressive mandates, including:
- Onerous labor requirements that “actively” discriminate against workers in a way that could “deny communities — particularly those in rural areas — access to reliable broadband services.”
- Encouraging government-owned networks over private investment
- Prohibiting non-fiber optic projects from receiving BEAD funding, prioritizing fiber optic cable deployment over wireless internet deployment
- Mandates for affordability and rate regulation. The confusion over how to comply with this rule led to a significant delay in Virginia’s BEAD broadband deployment.
- Eligible projects must account for “climate-related” risks, which was not included in the infrastructure bill text
- The Biden-Harris administration has an inconsistent waiver process to ensure speedy deployment for the purchasing of broadband products and supplies from American workers and businesses.
Thune and the Republicans noted that these onerous requirements prevented the Biden-Harris administration from expanding internet access to underserved areas:
Instead of focusing on delivering broadband services to unserved areas, your administration has used the BEAD program to add partisan, extralegal requirements that were never envisioned by Congress and have obstructed broadband deployment. By imposing burdensome climate change mandates on infrastructure projects, prioritizing government-owned networks over private investment, mandating the use of unionized labor in states, and seeking to regulate broadband rates, your administration has caused unnecessary delays leaving millions of Americans unconnected. [Emphasis added]
Thune and his colleagues concluded in his letter to Harris, “The administration’s lack of focus on truly connecting the unconnected has failed the American people and represents a gross misuse of limited taxpayer dollars. The American public deserves better.”
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on X @SeanMoran3.
