Broadband Bucks

Broadband access by Biden decree:

“The NOFO left open for states to decide whether they want rate regulation or not and then turns out it really wasn’t a suggestion, it was more of an order,” Joel Thayer, a D.C.-based tech and telecom lawyer, told the DCNF. Thayer went on to say that the NTIA was denying the grant applications of states that don’t include price regulations in their plans, like what happened with Virginia. “There is clearly a concerted effort within the NCIA to essentially buck the statute and say ‘we are the ones deciding that rate regulation is going to be part of these fund allocations and we are going to force the hand of all these states to adopt them,'” Thayer continued. Furchtgott-Roth agreed with the interpretation that the infrastructure law prevents the NTIA from regulating internet prices and said that the agency’s $30 price cap amounts to regulating prices. David Ditch, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, told the DCNF that the NTIA’s maneuvers are part of a broader strategy employed by the Biden administration to tie left-of-center agenda items to federal dollars. “I believe this mandate absolutely violates what Congress passed,” Ditch said, in reference to the NTIA’s rejection of Virginia’s broadband proposal. “It is unfortunately symptomatic of the administration’s approach of oftentimes using congressionally authorized funds for inserting a wide range of left-leaning mandates,” he continued.

It's what they do...