Republican Sens. Joni Ernst of Iowa and Ted Cruz of Texas introduced legislation on Friday to recover savings from former President Joe Biden’s rural broadband initiative.
The $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program has not started a single project since the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) was signed in 2021 by Biden, drawing Ernst’s attention in a November 2024 letter to former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Tesla CEO Elon Musk outlining up to $2 trillion in savings. Ernst, who chairs the Senate DOGE Caucus, introduced the Recovering Excess Communications Appropriations while Protecting Telecommunications Upgrades, Reinvestment, and Expansion (RECAPTURE) Act after the Trump administration saved roughly $21 billion after making adjustments to the BEAD program.
“Despite the astronomical price tag, Biden’s broadband boondoggle failed to connect a single person to the internet before Trump took over and got the job done for less,” Ernst told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Now that the program is operating more efficiently and at a lower cost, I am proud to introduce my RECAPTURE Act to save the American people billions. Bringing fast and reliable internet to every corner of the country is more important than ever in the digital age, and I am confident that we can do so while racking up big savings.”
The legislation would mandate that the $21 billion in savings be returned to the United States Treasury and be used for deficit reduction.
The Biden administration included many regulatory hurdles in its plan for the BEAD program, including requirements for partnering internet service providers to participate in environmental initiatives and requiring the use of union workers among other requirements detailed in a 98-page document outlining a 14-step process for awarding the grants.
Ernst has prioritized targeting government waste during her two terms in the Senate. She requested Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy consider yanking $14 billion from transportation projects she described as “boondoggles” in a letter sent Aug. 5, citing a July 30 report describing those that were either five or more years behind schedule or $1 billion over budget.
The chairman of the Senate DOGE Caucus also has addressed “taxpayer-funded union time” (TFUT), which cost taxpayers at least $135 million in fiscal year 2019, according to Ernst. The senator detailed several instances where the system has been abused, including when an employee at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) used TFUT to start a real estate business.
Ernst also has addressed issues with telework by federal employees and unused office space and buildings owned or leased by the federal government.
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