July 2025

Affordable, accessible broadband unlocks tremendous economic, educational, and telehealth opportunities. Accordingly, achieving true universal broadband connectivity has been a long-standing bipartisan goal. Despite years of heroic eort, many parts of rural and hard-to-serve America lacked affordable access to broadband until recently. The advent of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite broadband services like SpaceX’s Starlink and Amazon’s Project Kuiper has transformed connectivity for the better. Chamber of Progress has long supported public policy to advance LEOs.

Is there any practical future for the US Department of Agriculture's ReConnect program? The Senate Appropriations Committee recently approved the fiscal year 2026 budget for the Department of Agriculture. Buried within that budget is $100 million for new ReConnect loans or grants. It’s still early in the federal budget process, and the $100 million slated for next year is a preliminary number, but it’s already lower than previous annual allocations to the program. ReConnect has been a popular program, particularly with cooperatives and small telephone companies.