Biden’s hyper-partisan implementation of the bipartisan infrastructure law

So much for bipartisanship.

As the Biden administration begins to spend $42.5 billion in broadband funding from the bipartisan 2021 infrastructure bill, it’s once again opting to implement the law in the most hyper-partisan way imaginable. In so doing, the administration isn’t just undermining the will of Congress, it’s also punishing the very Americans whom the broadband funding is supposed to help. 

Republicans and Democrats united to pass the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program as part of the infrastructure bill to build out high-speed broadband internet networks to those Americans still in need. Approximately 14 million people still lack broadband access, leaving them disconnected from better employment, education and health care opportunities. Both parties rallied around the broadband expansion program because it allows for the flexibility and provides enough funding to finally get every American online. 

The Biden administration, however, has other priorities.  

Instead of following the text and spirit of the infrastructure law and spending the BEAD money fairly and wisely, it seeks to impose its partisan policy demands on program recipients.

Case in point: Congress explicitly banned the federal government from setting price controls on broadband plans, but the Biden administration is attempting to impose them anyway as it implements the BEAD program.  

Why? Because left-wing activists demand it, regardless of what bipartisan majorities in Congress passed.

Here’s how Team Biden is going about its price control push. The BEAD program requires states to submit broadband expansion plans to the federal government to access the funding. While Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Administrator Alan Davidson both claimed in sworn testimony that they aren’t rate regulating, NTIA is apparently refusing to approve state plans unless they include specific price controls. Recently, for example, Virginia’s broadband office called foul on NTIA stalling its plan because it didn’t include “an exact price.”  

The Biden administration will never admit it, but the implication is clear: States must do what left-wing activists want — commit to the administration’s illicit partisan policy demands or be denied the federal broadband funding. 

Violating the law in that manner ends up punishing its intended beneficiaries.  Republicans and Democrats agreed to block price controls because they would hamstring the very broadband expansion that taxpayers are funding. Specifically, if state governments are forced to set rates, many broadband companies will steer clear of participating in infrastructure projects because they can’t make enough money to cover the cost of the plans they sell.  

If those broadband companies can’t participate, then the needed broadband networks won’t get built. As a result, millions of Americans could remain disconnected. Such is the sky-high cost of Team Biden’s partisanship. 

Unfortunately, the partisanship doesn’t end there.  

Price controls reflect the Biden administration’s broader push for a government takeover of broadband companies. That scheme is even more obvious in the administration’s newly unveiled “net neutrality” regulations.  Late last year, the Biden-dominated Federal Communications Commission (FCC) initiated the process of subjecting broadband providers to a 1930s law intended for copper-wire phones and railroads, not the internet. Net neutrality amounts to de facto federal government control over broadband companies’ every action.  

Once again, no one stands to lose more than American families who still need access to high-speed internet. Federal control of broadband would ensure less investment in infrastructure, higher costs, and worst of all, less innovation in this critical technology.  

In other words, the Biden administration’s partisanship is blocking the progress that Americans need — and that taxpayers paid for. The bipartisan infrastructure law, and specifically the BEAD program, was supposed to demonstrate Washington’s ability to finally unite in a productive fashion. The Biden administration, however, prefers a more divisive approach, with potentially devastating consequences.  

If the BEAD program fails and several years from now millions of Americans still lack broadband internet access, we all should remember where to place the blame. It’s not lawmakers in Congress, who in a rare example of bipartisanship tried to do the right thing. It’s the Biden administration, which is putting politics and its partisan agenda ahead of the American people. 

Jeffrey Mazzella is president of the Center for Individual Freedom.