More than 40 members of Congress have sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick expressing their opposition to changes announced for the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program. All of the letter’s signees are Democrats except for one Independent, Senator Angus King of Maine, who caucuses with the Democrats.
The letter began with a reiteration of the intent of the law, which is to provide broadband coverage to all unserved locations. This was to be done before any funds were used for other purposes.
The letter suggests BEAD changes contemplated by Lutnick and the Trump administration are contrary to this priority.
“The restructuring notice appears to violate this requirement by allowing applicants to exclude certain unserved locations. Such an allowance would defy bipartisan congressional intent, which was predicated on the understanding that public investment was needed to achieve universal service precisely because building the infrastructure to cover many rural areas was too costly to be profitable.”
In addition to leaving unserved without connectivity, the letter to Lutnick suggests that the BEAD changes laid out in the Restructuring Policy Notice likely would result in degraded service to some with connectivity.
Finally, the signees suggested that the provisions intended to ensure that broadband services are affordable and put to good use are not being met.
The letter to Lutnick about the BEAD changes was signed by 15 senators and 31 representatives.
The new rules for BEAD were released earlier this month. The changes include new scoring criteria that must be followed in states’ selection of funding recipients. In most cases, states must choose the lowest-cost applicants.
The letter was signed by Senators Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Chris Coons (D-DE), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Angus King (I-ME), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Ed Markey (D-MA), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Gary Peters (D-MI), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Tina Smith (D-MN), and Raphael Warnock (D-GA).
Members of the House signing the letter were Leger Fernández (D-NM-03), Bishop (D-GA-02), Bynum (D-OR-05), Carson (D-IN-07), Carter (D-LA-02), Cleaver (D-MO-05), Clyburn (D-SC), Davis (D-IL-07), DelBene (D-WA-01), Evans (D-PA-03), Fields (D-LA-06), Figures (D-AL-02), Garcia (D-TX-29), Goodlander (D-NH-02), Hoyle (D-OR-04), Huffman (D-CA-02), Lofgren (D-CA-18), McGovern (D-MA-02), Menendez (D-NJ-08), Mrvan (D-IN-01), Neguse (D-CO-02), Pappas (D-NH-01), Scholten (D-MI-03), Sewell (D-AL-07), Soto (D-FL-09), Thompson (D-MS-02), Titus (D-NV-01), Tlaib (D-MI-12), Tokuda (D-HI-02), Williams (D-GA-05), and Wilson (D-FL-24).
