NTIA wasted $250 million in taxpayer funds hiring for a program that hasn’t even launched yet 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Ranking Member Ted Cruz (R-Texas) this week urged the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to pause its unlawful Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) activities. NTIA’s renegade actions are saddling states with extraneous mandates that prevent unserved communities from gaining internet access. The letter comes in response to NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson’s recent admission that the Biden-Harris administration has spent $250 million in BEAD funding to hire government employees and contractors to administer a program that has yet to connect a single American to the internet.

As incoming Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, Sen. Cruz also committed to investigating the BEAD program, including NTIA’s extreme technology bias, imposition of rate regulation, unionized workforce and DEI labor requirements, climate change assessments, and other central planning mandates.

The full text of Sen. Cruz’s letter to NTIA is below.

“Under your leadership, NTIA has repeatedly ignored the text of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in administering the $42.45 billion in Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. This past August, I sent you an inquiry regarding NTIA’s decision to hoard nearly $1 billion in BEAD funding to build a central planning bureaucracy that proceeded to impose extraneous mandates on the states and prevent the expeditious delivery of internet access to unserved communities. Instead of working to reverse course on the botched BEAD program, your agency responded by doubling down on its extralegal requirements and evading congressional inquiries.”

“The only substantive response in your letter revealed that since the program's inception, you have spent—or rather, wasted—over $250 million hiring government employees and contractors to ‘administer’ a program that, in practical terms, hasn’t even launched. This pattern of withholding actionable information and misusing taxpayer resources must end.”

“Fortunately, as President-elect Trump has already signaled, substantial changes are on the horizon for this program. With anticipated new leadership at both NTIA and in Congress, the BEAD program will soon be ‘unburdened by what has been’ and states will no longer be subject to the unlawful and burdensome bureaucratic obstacles imposed by the Biden-Harris NTIA.”

“As Chairman, I will monitor this matter, as I did during my tenure as ranking member. Congress will review the BEAD program early next year, with specific attention to NTIA’s extreme technology bias in defining ‘priority broadband projects’ and ‘reliable broadband service’; imposition of statutorily-prohibited rate regulation; unionized workforce and DEI labor requirements, climate change assessments; excessive per-location costs, and other central planning mandates. In turn, states will be able to expand connectivity on terms that meet the real needs of their communities, without irrelevant requirements that tie up resources, create confusion, and slow deployment.”

“It is incumbent on you to bear these upcoming changes in mind during this transition term. I therefore urge NTIA to pause unlawful, extraneous BEAD activities and avoid locking states into in any final actions until you provide a detailed, transparent response to my original inquiry and take immediate, measurable steps to address these issues. I am enclosing a copy of your letter to ensure full accountability for decisions that impact American connectivity.”

Click HERE for a copy of Sen. Cruz’s letter to NTIA.

BACKGROUND:

In August, Sen. Cruz demanded answers regarding the Biden-Harris administration’s withholding of funding from its signature $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program to build a bureaucracy that has saddled States with unlawful, and extraneous left-wing central planning mandates, resulting in massive program delays.

In the letter, Sen. Cruz outlined how the NTIA diverted a large sum of the program’s funding—$849 million—to impose excessive administrative burdens on the States in pursuit of the Biden-Harris administration’s extreme left-wing social policies, including rate regulation, unionized labor requirements, climate change regulations, technology mandates, and other extralegal policies. These unauthorized directives from NTIA have stalled the program and inflated the costs of expanding internet access, as Sen. Cruz previously highlighted in his Red Light Report published last year.  

As part of his investigation into the massive delays in the BEAD program, Sen. Cruz requested a breakdown of administrative funding allocated and utilized by the NTIA, as well as information regarding the approval or denial of proposals received by NTIA. So far, NTIA has not provided a responsive reply to these concerns.

To read the full text of Sen. Cruz’s August letter, click HERE. Director Davidson’s response is located on page 3, HERE. 

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