Three years after the passage of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program, the program designed to close the digital divide, has been a failure. Congress and the Federal Communications Commission now have three options: repeal, replace or reform.
As FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has noted, not a single home has been connected with broadband through BEAD. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which administers the program, has approved plans from only three states out of the 56 states and territories that would receive part of the $42.5 billion that Congress allocated for the program.
Given how slowly the program has progressed, options remain on the table. President Trump could attempt to eliminate BEAD by testing the constitutional limits of impoundment power and a president’s ability to propose rescission of specific funds. Presidents once had greater power to pull funding. Still, now such rescissions require approval by the House and Senate (Republican-controlled) following the passage of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974.
If the administration attempts to eliminate BEAD, it could replace it with another program. The Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase II could provide a blueprint since that program was more consumer- and taxpayer-friendly, focusing on efficient deployment through a reverse auction process and a greater willingness to use more technologies such as satellite internet.
The administration could also reform BEAD. Many of the program’s rules under NTIA read like a progressive wish list, including “diversity, equity and inclusion requirements, climate-change rules, price controls, preferences for union labor, and schemes that favor government-run networks,” Carr said. Trump has already issued an executive order to eliminate all federal DEI programs. While Trump has yet to appoint a new director to replace former NTIA head Alan Davidson, the NTIA under his administration will likely roll back many of those BEAD rules.
Under a BEAD reform plan, the NTIA could still issue grants that are less than the full amount, using impoundment to avoid waste. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has been a proponent of states returning any unused funds from the program to the federal coffers.
Louisiana was the first state to have its plans approved by NTIA in November. The state received nearly $1.36 billion from taxpayers to connect residents but will spend only two-thirds of that on broadband infrastructure. The $500 million in excess funds came “as a result of the state’s highly efficient award process,” according to a press release from Gov. Jeff Landry. The press release also noted that the state will use the money for “initiatives targeting education, workforce development, healthcare, agriculture and economic development.”
Cruz noted in a press release in November that the Biden administration had spent $250 million to hire government employees and contractors to run BEAD despite not connecting a single person. Cruz said the NTIA under Biden had allocated $849 million from the program to push the liberal initiatives.
“Fortunately, as … Trump has already signaled, substantial changes are on the horizon for this program,” Cruz said. “With anticipated new leadership at both NTIA and in Congress, the BEAD program will soon be ‘unburdened by what has been’ and states will no longer be subject to the unlawful and burdensome bureaucratic obstacles imposed by the Biden-Harris NTIA.”
Something must be done about the struggling BEAD program. It is hoped the Trump administration can devise solutions that will lessen the taxpayer burden while also connecting all Americans with broadband.
