The Bipartisan Infrastructure Act of 2021 was an early victory for the Biden administration. One of his highlights was $42.5 billion to bring broadband Internet access to rural areas.
“Reducing prices — including the cost of high-speed Internet service — is President Biden’s top priority,” a White House press release said at the time.
Like many of this administration’s “top priorities,” it never happened.
Three years after Biden signed the legislation, not a single home or business has connected to one of these new networks. In fact, the first rural broadband modernization project has been postponed until next year.
It all boils down to stifling bureaucracy tangled in bureaucracy.
Arizona is in dire need of broadband access
Called Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD), the project is being administered by Biden’s Commerce Department. States apply for the funds, that department approves them, and Washington opens the money tape.
In theory, at least.
To date, a handful of states have adopted. Arizona submitted its paperwork, which is still in the inbox of several bureaucrats. When approved, our state should gain access to nearly $1 billion to modernize our networks.
According to the US Government Accountability Office, more than 18% of people living on tribal lands — that’s about a quarter of Arizona’s land — don’t have broadband access. In non-tribal areas, it is only 4%.
Alan Davidson, who runs the BEAD program, recently admitted to a House panel that the first two years were devoted to just “planning and preparation”. This year, he said they “will begin the challenge and the selection processes of the sub-grantees that will finance the providers to build networks”.
Still, Davidson promises that by next year he will finally have a “shovel project in the ground.”
Or maybe 2026.
It won’t happen anytime soon, thanks to red tape
The Commerce Department has been very confused with the addition of barriers between DC and the states. They’ve added a preference for hiring union workers, requiring contractors to favor “certain segments of the workforce, such as individuals with criminal histories,” and to account for climate change.
The trade also created a byzantine approval process that has delayed progress across the country. None of this is in the bill passed by Congress and signed by the president.
Meanwhile, those in the tribal lands and remote areas of our state remain underserved.
Sorry, Arizona:There is no federal assistance on the way
Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr has made his disappointment known.
“There’s been no dirt as far as a shovel that’s been turned toward connecting people,” he said.
None of this is a surprise. That’s just how the Beltway works.
EV charging stations have the same problem
In the same 2021 infrastructure bill, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was given $7.5 billion to build 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations from coast to coast.
Three years later, how much has he built? Eight.
Tesla installed twice that number in my neighborhood a few months ago, no government funding needed. Driving by them the other day, I saw a dozen cars charging while their AC was blasting. Which seems suboptimal for the environment, but it works.
When asked about this failure on “Face the Nation,” Buttigieg said he needed to create a “new category of federal investment,” that every state was getting “formula dollars” and that installing a charger is really hard.
However, he promised half a million of these gizmos by 2030. Only 499,992 to go.
The EV charger problem is the same as with rural broadband. Washington has attached miles of red tape, complex regulations, reliability and interoperability standards, site approval and who can be hired to install them.
Bureaucrats tremble with your money
As always, politicians promise, taxpayer funds and bureaucrats worry. The idea of progress always collides with the grim reality of government incompetence.
While the regulations are intended to ensure public safety and welfare, their burdensome nature results in significant delays, cost overruns and even project abandonment.
Each obstacle presents opportunities for legal challenges, public hearings and interagency clashes, all of which prevent success.
In my neighborhood, Google is installing fiber broadband and Tesla is building EV chargers. Meanwhile, Washington bureaucrats are writing clever excuses for why they can do neither.
Jon Gabriel, a Mesa resident, is the editor-in-chief of Ricochet.com and a contributor to The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com. On X, formerly Twitter: @exjon.
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