FCC Commissioner Just Scorched Harris for Her $42 Billion Fail

https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2024/09/19/fcc-commissioner-just-slammed-harris-for-her-42-billion-fail-n4932667

If you gave Kamala Harris a fire hydrant, a fire hose, one of those hydrant wrenches, and instructions to fill the little blue kiddie pool in your front yard, she couldn't get enough water in that thing to make a tissue damp. At least that's my takeaway after FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr's scorching congressional review of Harris's oversight of Joe Biden's multibillion-dollar plan to wire rural homes with high-speed internet.

"In 2021, Vice President Harris agreed to lead a $42 billion effort to expand internet access to millions. It's been 1,039 days, and no one has been connected—no homes, no businesses, not even a shovel in the ground."

So a lot like her oversight of the border crisis then.

Carr's congressional testimony continued: "It gets worse. No infrastructure will begin until next year at the earliest, and in many cases, not until 2026. This makes it the slowest federal broadband program in recent history."

Reason's Joe Lancaster reported in June that red tape — surprise! — plays a big part in why all those billions are just sitting there untapped:

Among several examples, the senators noted that NTIA's BEAD proposal "requires subgrantees to prioritize certain segments of the workforce, such as 'individuals with past criminal records' and 'justice-impacted […] participants.'" The infrastructure law that authorized the program merely required contractors to be "in compliance with Federal labor and employment laws."

The previous year, in a letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Republican senators warned that the NTIA's proposed BEAD rollout "creates a complex, nine-step, 'iterative' structure and review process that is likely to mire State broadband offices in excessive bureaucracy and delay connecting unserved and underserved Americans as quickly as possible."

4