It's not a terrible mistake. A terrible mistake would have been having such power available on ports that even a reasonable person might short out by innocently connecting a USB C cable between them.
A couple 5.1k resistors add about $0.00001 to the BOM cost. The terrible mistake is on the designers of devices who try to forego these.
Important context from the article includes things such as: unspent funds remain available for future projects; the works were predicted to have a devastating impact on local wildlife, such as killing an estimated 6,000 dolphins; this is not a partisan issue, as there have been outspoken Dems and Republicans on either side; also devastating impact to the local fishing industry was predicted, prompting a $400m lawsuit to curtail the project.