Watchdog Calls for Better Administration of Broadband Infrastructure Spending

For Immediate Release                                            Contact: Abigail Graham: (202) 417-7235

June 26, 2023                                                               

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the Biden administration announced state funding allocations from the $42.45-billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) fund. This is the largest single federal expenditure dedicated to expanding internet. These taxpayer funds will be distributed to every U.S. state and territory, and each will in turn administer its own grants program. The BEAD program is just the latest of the federal government’s over-complicated network of broadband-funding programs, which have already proved susceptible to waste, abuse, and overbuilding.

Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) Executive Director Patrick Hedger provided the following comments:

“At every stage of the process, Congress and the Biden administration have made the BEAD program more inefficient. Congress required that all BEAD grants must comply with so-called Buy America provisions, which will greatly raise the costs of connecting unserved households. Inexplicably, all states (including Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia) are statutorily entitled to a minimum of $100 million regardless of the need to connect people. This means, for example, that at least $100 million will be given to Washington, D.C. even though the federal government’s broadband maps show that high-speed internet is already available to the entire district.

“Then, the Biden administration opted against a technologically neutral approach, favoring some methods over others that may be more efficient. The administration continues the failed legacy of government-owned (taxpayer-funded) networks (GONs). TPA’s two reports, GON with the Wind: The Failed Promise of Government Owned Networks Across the Country and “GON with the Wind II: Frankly, Taxpayers Do Care,” detail the billions of taxpayer dollars wasted on failed broadband projects.  President Biden made clear in today’s remarks that the BEAD program isn’t just about closing the digital divide – it’s about enacting industrial and social policy and a federal jobs program. This approach will make broadband builds costlier, which will result in more Americans remaining unconnected for longer.

“Looking forward, each state will run its own grant program that will disburse BEAD funds to individual projects. TPA will be monitoring the expenditure of these funds in each state and will be working with state and federal officials to require full accountability and transparency as taxpayer money is spent.

“TPA encourages states to reject much of the Biden administration’s approach. Instead, they should adopt light-touch, technologically neutral, market-oriented strategies that will fully leverage private enterprise instead of hamstringing it.” 

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Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to educating the public through the research, analysis and dissemination of information on the government’s effects on the economy.