Senate Republican Whip John Thune led a letter with Senate Republicans on Wednesday, charging Vice President Kamala Harris’s job as “broadband czar” is disastrous in a letter exclusively obtained by Breitbart News. Thune has served as the former chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee and is the ranking member on the Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Media, and Broadband. He wrote to Harris about her failed leadership to expand broadband access to Americans.
Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Ted Budd (R-NC), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Deb Fischer (R-NE), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Todd Young (R-IN), and Eric Schmitt (R-MO) signed onto Thune’s letter to Harris. The senators wrote that her performance as “broadband czar” mirrored her job as the “border czar,” marked by poor management and a lack of effectiveness despite significant federal broadband investments and her promises to deliver broadband to rural areas.
Breitbart News has documented how Harris’s progress in expanding broadband access has been bogged down by progressive mandates, including onerous labor requirements, encouraging government-owned networks over private investment, prohibiting non-fiber optic projects from receiving BEAD funding, and mandates for affordability and rate regulation. These mandates have prevented the Biden-Harris administration from expanding internet access to underserved areas.
Thune and his colleagues concluded in their letter that the administration’s lack of focus on connecting the unconnected has failed the American people and represents a gross misuse of limited taxpayer dollars. The American public deserves better.