The Trump administration has issued an executive order that would prevent states from receiving Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program non-deployment funds if they do not cede control of artificial intelligence (AI) policy to them.
Section 4 of the executive order, which is entitled “Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence,” mandates identification of “state laws that require AI models to alter their truthful outputs, or that may compel AI developers or deployers to disclose or report information in a manner that would violate the First Amendment or any other provision of the Constitution.”
The next section of the executive order ties AI policy and BEAD non-deployment funds together and suggests states not complying with the federal response to the earlier section’s findings could be punished.
“States with onerous AI laws identified pursuant to section 4 of this order are ineligible for non-deployment funds, to the maximum extent allowed by Federal law. The Policy Notice must also describe how a fragmented State regulatory landscape for AI threatens to undermine BEAD-funded deployments, the growth of AI applications reliant on high-speed networks, and BEAD’s mission of delivering universal, high-speed connectivity.”
This, according to CCG Consulting President Doug Dawson, puts the states in the bind.
“State Broadband Offices in States that have AI regulations do not have the power to overturn AI regulations, and State legislatures must act if they want to cancel AI regulations to preserve [BEAD] non-deployment funds,” Dawson wrote in his POTs and PANs blog.
“That may be a futile effort, because my best guess is that we haven’t seen the end of attempts to deny non-deployment funds and that this is only the first volley. For what it’s worth, there is opposition to overturning State regulation of AI in Congress, but it would be extraordinary for this Congress to override an Executive Order with legislation.”
It’s possible that the dynamic between the states and the federal government is shifting and that Dawson will be surprised. This week, the House of Representatives pushed back against an executive order that removed collective bargaining rights of federal employees.
Earlier this week, about 160 state legislators from both parties sent a letter to Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and Arielle Roth — the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) — asking that the remaining non-deployment funds from the BEAD Program be released.
