By CatholicVote | Created at 2025-01-17 17:53:19 | Updated at 2025-01-17 22:29:25
4 hours ago
CV NEWS FEED // A recent investigation by Madeleine Rowley of The Free Press revealed how diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) requirements, coupled with bureaucratic inefficiencies, have stalled a $42 billion federal initiative aimed at connecting rural Americans to high-speed internet.
Launched in 2021, the Biden administration’s ambitious Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program sought to provide broadband access to 25 million underserved Americans. However, a mix of administrative delays, stringent eligibility requirements, and the prioritization of fiber-optic cable installation have hindered progress. The BEAD program has yet to connect a single household.
DEI-focused mandates have compounded the program’s challenges, Rowley wrote. Brendan Carr, a Republican commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), described the requirements as “woke leftist policies” that delay the project and detract from the primary goal of bridging the digital divide.
“The shovels haven’t turned any dirt, and Americans want to know what’s going on with these policies,” Carr said. “It’s sort of a microcosm for many of these broader concerns. Are they concerned about the digital divide, or are they concerned about DEI?”
The policies mandate that states demonstrate efforts to encourage participation from businesses owned by minorities, women, and individuals who are socially or economically disadvantaged, Rowley reported.
“They also had to create a Five-Year Action Plan that required collaborating with unions and ‘underrepresented communities,’ including prisoners, LGBTQI+ individuals, women, and people of color,” she said.
States have struggled to meet federal standards, including the creation of the five-year action plans, hiring internet service providers, and using faulty FCC maps to identify areas most in need of broadband. Early map inaccuracies alone delayed the program by six to eight months, according to telecom consultant Doug Dawson.
Misty Ann Giles, director of Montana’s Department of Administration, testified during a House Committee on Energy & Commerce hearing last September that the social policy requirements in the program introduced unprecedented complications for states and internet providers. According to Rowley, Giles likened the federal government’s requests to “building a plane while flying it.”
Despite these hurdles, the administration maintains that BEAD is “on time and on track.”
