Fischer, Other Senators Press NTIA to 'Preserve' State Use of Non-Deployment BEAD Money
Senate Communications Subcommittee Chair Deb Fischer, R-Neb., and 13 other senators urged NTIA on Tuesday to “preserve states’ ability to use their non-deployment BEAD funds consistent with congressional intent” amid concerns that the Trump administration might seek to claw that money back. Some estimates have found that $20 billion of BEAD’s $42.5 billion in funding qualifies as non-deployment money. President Donald Trump last week signed an executive order that directs NTIA to potentially curtail non-deployment BEAD funding for states that the administration determines have overly burdensome AI laws (see 2512120048).
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Fischer and the other senators said in a letter to NTIA Administrator Arielle Roth that they're concerned that the “current status of non-deployment funding … appears unsettled," but they were "encouraged by your public comments” earlier this month that the agency is “operating under the assumption states will get to use BEAD savings” (see 2512020015). Other signers include Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Communications ranking member Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M.
In the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Congress intended BEAD funding to primarily “fund broadband expansion [but provided] authority to redistribute unallocated funding amongst eligible entities, to maximize broadband infrastructure expansion,” the senators said. This “broader set of permissible ‘non-deployment’ uses to facilitate goals of the program [could] boost the economic productivity that connectivity brings to every corner of our country.”
The senators asked NTIA to provide them a “public accounting of the BEAD funds for each state, including amounts already committed to deployment projects and amounts remaining unallocated or reserved for non-deployment uses.” They want “clarification of NTIA’s current interpretation of allowable ‘non-deployment’ uses in light of the June” updated policy notice “and whether any previously approved non-deployment activities may remain eligible.” The senators also want a “timetable for revised guidance on non-deployment funds, along with any criteria or conditions under which non-deployment programs will be permitted or prioritized.”
NTIA didn’t immediately comment.