We’ve seen it repeatedly: good policy ideas get tangled in red tape, and the result is stalled progress, ballooning costs, and communities left waiting for the help they were promised.
In 2021, the Biden administration announced a historic $42.5 billion investment to expand broadband access through the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program. It was a landmark commitment designed to close the digital divide and extend connectivity to every corner of the country.
Nearly four years later, most money remains stuck in bureaucratic limbo. State broadband leaders are navigating draft plans, checklists, multi-layered review cycles, and countless government-approval checkpoints. The program’s funding is effectively paused — not due to a lack of need or demand but because the process has been allowed to eclipse tangible progress.
As timelines shift and paperwork piles up, it’s easy for momentum to stall and for local champions to grow discouraged. Now more than ever, we need them to stay focused on getting homes and businesses connected. The next phase of BEAD — the construction phase — is where the program can truly deliver and become real for communities. Staying locked on that outcome is how we turn this investment into its intended, lasting effect.
The process illustrates the dynamic that Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson scrutinize in their book “Abundance”: what if we governed to maximize outcomes rather than to minimize risk? What if our public systems prioritized delivering results rather than sweating over process?
BEAD, in many ways, reflects this tension. It was structured to elevate community voices — correctly requiring stakeholder engagement at the federal, state and local levels. In emphasizing listening over executing, the program risks getting stuck in a cycle of endless consultation without action. As Klein and Thompson point out, the balance between inclusion and execution is delicate. And BEAD illustrates how easily it can tip too far in one direction.
During my time at the Commerce Department, working on the team charged with administering the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program, a predecessor to BEAD that made grants between 2009 and 2012, I witnessed the promise and pitfalls of large-scale infrastructure investments. I understand the well-intentioned rationale behind detailed checklists, planning guidelines and review cycles designed to ensure accountability. When applied without flexibility, these procedures can grind even the best intentions to a halt.
We’re already seeing the fallout. Years after the BEAD announcement, many states are still drafting plans instead of deploying infrastructure. Local leaders are still waiting for approvals instead of hiring workers. And communities without service remain disconnected, not because the dollars aren’t there but because the system isn’t working fast enough to deliver them.
This is more than fibers and cables and infrastructure. It’s also about everything broadband supports and enables: job opportunities, telehealth appointments, remote education, and modern workforce development. When deployment slows, these essential services move beyond reach for the people who need them most.
The good news is that it’s not too late to course-correct. BEAD’s promise can still be fulfilled, but only if we pivot from planning to execution and from box-checking to results. As the Commerce Department and Congress review BEAD, I call on these leaders to inject a heightened sense of urgency into BEAD during the build-out phase of the program.
That starts with clear timelines and limited review loops. Stakeholder engagement should remain a core tenet of the program, but it should also be structured around reasonable “shot-clocks.” In other words, we should listen, but we must listen faster. We should prioritize projects that address urgent gaps in connectivity, especially in the communities left behind the longest. We should also empower state and local leaders to make swift, informed decisions that make the most sense for their communities.
Further, BEAD’s four-year build timeline will demand a whole-of-government approach — federal, state and local — and coordination between internet service providers, utility pole owners and railroads to streamline permitting and construction. Without applying the principles of the Abundance Agenda — urgency, flexibility and a focus on delivery — toward overcoming all barriers to building broadband networks, even the best-designed funding process that leverages the capabilities of the most experienced, qualified ISP partners will grind to a halt.
With clarity of purpose and a shared commitment to execution, this program can still build the networks, create the jobs and deliver the transformative connectivity Americans were promised so that BEAD doesn’t become a cautionary tale.
Let’s turn listening into action to get BEAD back on track.