Commerce secretary announces ‘rigorous review’ of BEAD program
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick (right) listens as President Donald Trump speaks at his swearing-in ceremony. Lutnick on Wednesday announced a "rigorous review" of the $42 billion BEAD program. Jim Watson via Getty Images
By
Chris Teale
Howard Lutnick said it is in “dire need of a readjustment,” and pledged to take a tech-neutral approach while dismantling many of the broadband access program’s Biden-era requirements.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced Wednesday the department would undertake a “rigorous review” of the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program, and said it would now take a “tech-neutral approach.”
Lutnick also pledged to reverse many “pointless requirements” the Biden administration had attached to the program and said it would find ways to speed up infrastructure construction, while reducing delays and alleged waste. He also assailed the former president for the program’s “woke mandates, favoritism towards certain technologies, and burdensome regulations,” and said it is in “dire need of a readjustment.”
“Under the revamped BEAD program, all Americans will receive the benefit of the bargain that Congress intended,” Lutnick said in a statement. “We’re going to deliver high-speed internet access, and we will do it efficiently and effectively at the lowest cost to taxpayers.”
Congress included BEAD as part of the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, and there had been some progress as every state had their plans for digital access and equity approved at the end of last year.
But the effort looked to be in trouble from early in President Donald Trump’s second term as he nominated several BEAD critics to key positions.
That included elevating Brendan Carr to chair of the Federal Communications Commission, and nominating Arielle Roth to head up the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. Both have been skeptical about BEAD as it is currently constructed and said it has not moved quickly enough to get people online, as well as criticizing what they viewed as various unrelated mandates around hiring, cost requirements and climate change.
Lutnick’s announcement came as the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Communications and Technology began a hearing on rural broadband that it called, “Fixing Biden’s Broadband Blunder.”
In his opening statement, Rep. Richard Hudson, a North Carolina Republican who chairs the subcommittee, said he was “excited” to hear of the review. He also talked up legislation he and other subcommittee Republicans introduced that day known as the “SPEED for BEAD Act.” Those efforts need not stop states from doing their work, he said.
“These changes to the BEAD program can be implemented quickly, provide certainty to the states, and not hinder the progress that states have already made,” Hudson said.
Democrats on the subcommittee criticized the Trump administration for hamstringing BEAD as soon as it got into office and preventing three states that have started the grant award process from moving forward.
“To be clear, many of the changes our colleagues have suggested for BEAD can be done without delays or mandates,” Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat who is the committee’s ranking member, said in his opening statement. “Loosening funding requirements they don’t like — while misguided — does not require states to go back to the drawing board.”
“The pauses we see at the Department of Commerce, however, are like shackles on broadband providers in Louisiana, Nevada, and Delaware, who need only basic administrative approvals to begin their work in as little as six weeks. Instead, companies are sitting on tons of supply with a labor force questioning if there will be work next month,” he added.
Pallone also said the shift towards technology neutrality will benefit Elon Musk, the special government advisor and tech mogul who is CEO of satellite internet company Starlink. The federal government has been reluctant to make satellite internet fully eligible for BEAD grant funding and preferred fiber, but loosening those restrictions could mean Starlink stands to benefit.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the company and SpaceX, another Musk venture, stand to gain as much as $20 billion under new plans for BEAD being devised by the Commerce Department. Pallone said Musk is likely “salivating over the prospect of steering BEAD dollars to his companies.”
Those who support changes to BEAD said they are necessary to truly close the digital divide.
“It has been over three years since the IIJA became law, and we are still waiting for the first home to be connected using these funds,” Hudson said. “I think we should understand how this happened.”
NEXT STORY: NIST fires over 70 probationary employees, including CHIPS staff