Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said on Wednesday that President Trump’s $1 trillion infrastructure plan should make room for broadband investment spearheaded by the FCC.
In an address to a gathering at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pa., Pai said he supports the president’s plan to improve the nation’s deteriorating roads and bridges, public transportation systems, pipelines and ports and made a case for bridging the “digital divide” across the U.S. through infrastructure and innovation.
Speaking to the infrastructure side of the equation, Pai said: “In the digital age, I believe that wired and wireless broadband networks are core components of our nation’s infrastructure. And that’s why my position as a leader, if Congress is going to move forward with a major infrastructure package, I believe that broadband should be included within it.”
Pai then waded into the details of how these investments should be funded, pointing to the FCC’s Universal Service Fund, which aims to create universal broadband access in areas where it is financially difficult to do so. He said it should be targeted to areas that lack Internet access. “To maximize the impact of these investments, you need to minimize waste. And we are now on course to do just that,” he said.
Pai, a proponent of “light touch” regulation, has been a constant critic of government waste. In a February Medium blog post, he complained that the federal government spends about $25 million of taxpayer money each month to subsidize wireless carriers in areas where private capital has already been invested.
“This is perhaps a textbook definition of waste: public funds being spent to do what the private sector has already done,” he said.
The FCC programs Pai vouched for on Wednesday he said are structured to be cost-effective by avoiding wasteful spending in areas where the private sector is already investing in infrastructure. He also argued that the FCC enjoys track record of efficiency better than other agencies and these programs have bipartisan support in both the commission and on Capitol Hill.
“Although there is no time frame for a congressional infrastructure bill, we have the experts in place at the FCC ready to move if Congress gives us the responsibility to do so,” Pai said.
Pai also pushed for the infrastructure plan to include a proposal he called “Gigabit Opportunity Zones,” which would offer tax incentives to Internet Service Providers to deploy high-speed broadband services in low-income neighborhoods.
