Commerce Dept. strips out extraneous mandates to refocus the program on connectivity

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Last week, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) released a Policy Notice issuing new guidance for the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program. The new guidance ensures requested funds will be released this calendar year so long as a state proposal is technologically neutral and uses money efficiently. The Notice strips out time-consuming and unnecessary Biden-era central planning mandates, such as its extreme and costly technology bias, illegal rate regulation, and DEI labor requirements. Those edicts limited provider competition and delayed delivery of faster Internet to Americans.

Upon the release of the Notice, Sen. Cruz said:

“As I warned more than two years ago in my Red Light Report, the Biden administration’s technology bias and burdensome requirements would drive up costs and stall broadband buildout. Wasteful and irrelevant edicts on climate change and DEI hindered and, in many cases, outright prevented providers from serving Americans most in need. After four years of bureaucratic busywork, the Biden administration failed to connect a single American to the Internet.

“Kudos to Secretary Lutnick and the Trump administration for reversing course and refocusing BEAD on its core objective: connecting Americans to the Internet as expeditiously and efficiently as possible. This guidance prioritizes value, ensuring that the American taxpayer isn’t on the hook for excessive Biden-era rules that would have spent more than $100,000 per connection in some spots.

“Now is the time to finish the job. I am confident that NTIA, under the leadership of President Trump and Secretary Lutnick, will do just that.”

Background:

On November 15, 2021, President Biden signed the $42 billion BEAD program into law as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). At the IIJA’s signing ceremony, Biden promised that BEAD would “make high-speed Internet affordable and available everywhere.” Nearly four years later, the program failed to connect a single American to the Internet.

On May 13, 2022, Biden’s NTIA released a Notice of Funding Opportunity saddling the program with unlawful and extraneous left-wing mandates, increasing the cost of deployment and causing massive program delays.

In early 2023, Sen. Cruz, together with Republican colleagues, highlighted NTIA’s use of inaccurate maps in administering BEAD, as well as the program’s wasteful and irrelevant inclusion of liberal wish-list items. In September of that year, Sen. Cruz highlighted these other concerns in his Red Light Report, which recommended reforms to the BEAD program, including those released in today’s Notice.

In August and September of last year, Sen. Cruz put Biden’s head of NTIA and then-Broadband Czar Kamala Harris on notice, highlighting the administration’s lack of accountability or results in administering BEAD. In October, Sen. Cruz called out the Biden administration for distorting Census data in order to exclude satellite providers from the program.

In a post-election letter to Biden’s head of NTIA, Sen. Cruz highlighted the failures of the Biden administration’s management of BEAD and teed up the program for future reform by the incoming Trump administration.

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