My Closing Argument to the House BEAD Hearing

On September 9^th I testified to the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology at a hearing entitled “From Introduction to Implementation: A BEAD Program Progress Report. (My testimony can be found here.) The hearing, in a sense, was designed to convict the Biden Administration of administrative negligence in its handling of the BEAD program. When the hearing ended, my long dormant lawyer genes wanted to give a closing argument summarizing the hearing. Of course, Congressional hearings allow for no such thing. But if they did, here is what I would have said.

• First Count: BEAD is Taking Too Long. Verdict: Not Guilty on Account of Congressional Intent
• Count Two: BEAD is Violating “Technology Neutrality”. Verdict: Not Guilty
• Count Three: BEAD too Friendly to Labor. Verdict: Not Guilty
• Count Four: BEAD is Engaging in Price Regulation. Verdict: Not Guilty

Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, the Republicans were totally in their rights to ask the questions they asked and raise the questions they did. Further, the BEAD implementation has not been perfect. No implementation ever is. Further, we should be encouraged by the bipartisan agreement on the goal and the need to work together to address such problems as permitting, workforce and universal service reform. But in looking at the evidence provided in the hearing, one must conclude that the Administration has diligently moved forward in its efforts to achieve the bipartisan universal service goal, including having to spend considerable time and effort cleaning up the mess that a Republican FCC made four years ago and making sure that such a mess does not occur again.

[Blair Levin is the Policy Advisor to New Street Research and a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings Metro​]