Kamala Harris’s Rural Broadband Flop

In 2021 Vice President Kamala Harris (D-CA) agreed to lead the administration’s $42 billion plan for expanding high-speed internet to millions of Americans. That year, she tweeted that “we can bring broadband to rural America today.” Today, nearly three years after Congress passed the infrastructure bill that created the program, not one home or business has been connected through it. The Biden-Harris administration recently confirmed that construction projects won’t begin until next year at the earliest, and in many cases not until 2026. Instead of focusing on delivering broadband to unserved areas, the administration has used the program to advance a wish list of political goals. It has adopted regulations that include diversity, equity and inclusion requirements, climate-change rules, price controls, preferences for union labor, and schemes that favor government-run networks. The administration has been handing out wins to favored political groups rather than delivering results. In 2020 Elon Musk’s satellite service, Starlink, won an $885 million award from the Federal Communications Commission to offer high-speed internet to more than 640,000 rural homes and businesses. By a 2023 vote along party lines, the FCC revoked the award. As I noted in my dissent at the time, the FCC’s revocation couldn’t be explained by any objective application of the facts, the law or sound policy. In my view, it amounted to nothing more than regulatory lawfare against one of the left’s top targets: Musk. Rural communities stuck on the wrong side of the digital divide are paying the price.

[Carr is a Republican FCC commissioner.]