from the corruption-dressed-up-as-efficiency dept
It’s understandably not going to get the same attention as the dismantling of numerous government agencies at the hands of rich unelected manbabies, but the Trump administration is also taking aim at all the promising parts of the 2021 infrastructure bill. Especially as it relates to broadband.
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) contained a whopping $42.5 billion to expand broadband access. To make sure that money wasn’t wasted, it contained a number of provisions.
Like demanding ISPs try to provide at least one tier of service poor people could afford. Or provisions encouraging networks built with taxpayer money try to be open access, which, as we’ve discussed at length, help boost broadband competition and lower cost. As well as encouragement that taxpayer money be spent on the most future-proof technology (fiber) where applicable. Pretty common sense stuff.
The program is heavily managed by the states and the NTIA. But Trump’s new appointment to the NTIA, Arielle Roth, attended a Federalist Society event where she stated she’s going to scrap all of the must useful requirements for being “too liberal” and “too woke”:
“Roth, who is poised to lead the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, outlined her stance on the $42.5 billion Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment program in June, criticizing its emphasis on fiber deployments and what she described as a “woke social agenda” laden with additional regulatory burdens.”
“Requiring states to choose a statewide low-cost, low-income rate is just one of the ways that they’ve imposed extra legal requirements. There’s also climate change regulations, union mandates, wholesale access requirements… all kinds of left-wing priorities on the program that just divert resources away from the overall goal of closing broadband gaps. This is going to make the program less cost effective, and it’s going to undermine its goals.”
As with the DOGE stuff, authoritarians are having a good time stripping away stuff like this under the pretense that it’s “too woke,” or that by removing it they’re being more efficient. In reality they’re just stripping away this stuff due to corruption. They can’t just acknowledge they’re corrupt hacks, so the layers of performance are required to distract a lazy press and a broadly misinformed public.
The requirements to provide a cheaper tier to poor people have been aggressively opposed by giant telecom monopolies like AT&T (this “outrage” prompted a number of silly show hearings by the GOP). The provision that taxpayer money primarily be used for fiber upset Elon Musk, who wants to make sure his expensive, slower, less reliable Starlink service can hoover up a ton of subsidies.
Contrary to Republican whining, there’s a reason the NTIA didn’t want to throw billions of dollars at Starlink. If you’re going to spend taxpayer money on broadband, it makes sense to prioritize fiber and 5G wireless. Why? Starlink is capacity constrained, too expensive for many rural Americans, harms astronomical research, is destroying the ozone layer, and is run by a racist asshole.
I strongly suspect Republicans will throw as much of this money as possible at Starlink, ignore all the significant problems, then declare the U.S. broadband problem effectively “solved.”
A significant chunk of the $42.5 billion in infrastructure was likely poised to be funneled to the most innovative ISPs in broadband right now: cooperatives, municipally-owned broadband networks, and electrical utilities pushing into fiber. Instead, the NTIA under Roth will indisputably redirect that money to whichever big companies do the best job of kissing Trump’s ass.
Of course Trumpublicans voted against the infrastructure bill in the first place. And they’ve already begun taking credit for the benefits of the bill wherever possible among their constituents. But not before taking an axe to any parts of the bill that their biggest donors don’t like under the pretense of “eliminating waste” and “being efficient.”
It’s just corruption dressed up as efficiency, something press outlets covering this sort of thing still don’t illustrate particularly clearly to their readers.
Filed Under: bead grants, broadband, high speed internet, infrastructure, ntia, telecom
