Thune Faults Harris' Role as 'Broadband Czar' for BEAD Troubles

Senate Communications Subcommittee ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., took GOP leaders’ criticism (see 2409190063) of Vice President Kamala Harris’ role in shaping NTIA’s $42.5 billion broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program to the chamber floor Tuesday. Since mid-August, Thune and other GOP leaders have repeatedly pointed to Harris, the Democrats’ presidential nominee, as ultimately responsible for what they view as NTIA’s botched implementation of BEAD (see 2408130061. President Joe Biden tasked her with shepherding the broadband portion of his infrastructure spending proposal through Congress in 2021. BEAD and Harris’ “tenure as broadband czar” have “been nothing short of a disaster,” Thune said on the Senate floor. “It’s been nearly three years” since BEAD’s establishment via the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and it “has not connected a single household to the internet.” That delay is “a sad story of government inefficiency and progressivism run amok.” Thune pointed to NTIA’s decision to load “down the BEAD program with a liberal wish list of requirements that were never envisioned by Congress” as the ultimate cause. “I shudder to think what things would look like if [Harris] were in charge of the entire federal government” given what happened with BEAD.