Though the federal statute authorizing the grant money expressly forbids the administration from regulating rates through a preset price or formula, it is doing exactly this.

As Virginia finally stands at the threshold of building broadband out to unserved areas, the Biden administration department charged with deploying infrastructure funding is blocking the way with bureaucratic demands that will ultimately leave to broadband consumers worse off.

This is consistent with many of the administration’s economic policies that have walloped consumers with inflation and interest rates we have not seen since the ’70s.

Worse, many of these policies fly in the face of the law. Whether it is the Department of Education ignoring a Supreme Court ruling on college loan forgiveness, the SEC’s unlawful attempts to regulate cryptocurrency, or the FTC’s failed enforcement actions based on legally vacant antitrust theories, the White House continues to tacitly decree it will decide what the law is.

Now the public has a front-row seat to the little-known National Telecommunications and Information Agency (NTIA) bullying the commonwealth of Virginia over expanding broadband access to rural areas and making no bones about the fact that in doing so, it is openly violating its statutory authority.

The Virginia Office of Broadband (VOB) has access to $1.5 billion in federal grants as part of the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program (BEAD), which requires the state to propose a “low-cost” option for broadband that participating commercial providers will offer to less-affluent residents. This seems simple enough, but the NTIA does not want “simple,” it wants power.

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