House Republicans Propose Changes to the BEAD Program
Thursday, March 6, 2025
Digital Beat
House Republicans Propose Changes to the BEAD Program
On March 5, 2025, Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC), the chairman of the House Communications and Technology Subcommittee, introduced the Streamlining Program Efficiency and Expanding Deployment (SPEED) for BEAD Act (H.R. 1870), legislation that would amend the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to make changes to the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program. Chairman Hudson was joined by 14 Republican cosponsors, including many (though not all) of the Republicans on his subcommittee.
Although there have been a number of complaints about the program, this is the first major legislative proposal to change BEAD. Here's a look at SPEED for BEAD's main provisions.
1. The New BEAD
The SPEED for BEAD Act would change the name of the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program to the Broadband Expansion, Access, and Deployment Program. (Ironically, over the last few years, many in the broadband space have said, 'BEAD without equity is BAD.' Hopefully, that's not a bad omen moving forward.)
2. Use of BEAD Funds
The bill would change what happens when a state or territory does not use all of its BEAD allocation. Under current law, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) was to reallocate unused BEAD funds to other states based on the formula of the original allocation. The SPEED for BEAD Act would instead return any unused funds to the U.S. Treasury. (Note: unused BEAD funds are not the same as “non-deployment funds.” “Non-deployment funds” are funds that remain after a state has run its infrastructure program. By contrast, “unused funds” are what remain after a state has run both its infrastructure and non-deployment programs.)
The SPEED for BEAD Act would also remove eligibility for digital inclusion and adoption activities. Under current law, “non-deployment funds” can be used for a range of other purposes, such as apartment connectivity, data collection, and digital inclusion. The SPEED for BEAD Act would make digital inclusion activities ineligible. However, it would add eligibility for telecommunications workforce development programs.
3. Removing Locations from BEAD Projects
The SPEED for BEAD Act would amend Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act provisions about ensuring that all locations are served by broadband networks. The bill includes language that would allow a BEAD subgrantee (i.e. an ISP) to remove a location from a state's proposed service area if the ISP determines the location would "unreasonably increase costs or is otherwise necessary to remove." (Note: Some states already allow this flexibility.)
4. Eliminating Certain BEAD Award Conditions
The SPEED for BEAD Act would prohibit the NTIA and states from establishing or enforcing certain BEAD conditions or preferences, including:
- Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity;
- Workforce Development and Job Quality
- prevailing wages or compliance with subchapter IV of chapter 31 of title 40, United States Code;
- project labor agreements;
- union workforces;
- collective bargaining;
- local hiring;
- commitment to union neutrality;
- labor peace agreements;
- workforce composition or reporting of workforce composition;
- Infrastructure Resiliency
- climate change;
- Network Management
- regulation of network management practices, including data caps;
- open access;
- Letter of Credit from a subgrantee that
- has commercially deployed or operated a broadband network using technologies that are the same or similar to the technologies relevant to such process of bidding, grant, or subgrant; and
- is seeking a) funding in an amount that is less than 25 percent of the annual revenues of the subgrantee or b) to provide service to a number of locations that is less than 25 percent of the total number of locations served by the subgrantee.
5. Expanding the Role of Non-Fiber Technologies
The SPEED for BEAD Act would amend the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act by redefining the term "reliable broadband service" to include any broadband technology that meets the performance criteria1 without regard to the type of technology by which such service is provided. Effectively, this amendment would allow Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites and unlicensed fixed wireless to compete for BEAD awards alongside cable and licensed fixed wireless.
6. Loosening Affordable Broadband Requirements
BEAD-funded networks must offer at least one low-cost, high-speed plan to eligible, low-income households.
The SPEED for BEAD Act would also amend the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act around affordable broadband plan requirements. NTIA and the states would not be allowed to:
regulate, set, or otherwise mandate the rates charged for broadband service or the methodologies used to calculate such rates, for consumers generally or for any subset of consumers, including through the capping or freezing of such rates, the encouragement of another entity to regulate such rates, or the use of rates as part of an application scoring process.
Although Louisiana, Nevada and Delaware already have won approval from NTIA for their BEAD grant rules, their programs would have to be revised to adhere with this new provision, delaying the process the legislation aims to speed up.
What's Next?
The SPEED for BEAD Act could get a legislative hearing soon, although nothing has been scheduled yet. And there is no companion bill in the Senate. However, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has recently indicated that he will reform the BEAD program in ways that are similar (and potentially in excess of) the SPEED for BEAD Act.
In short, the SPEED for BEAD Act is a bill that would ask less of grant recipients and eliminate a potentially significant source of funding for digital adoption activities. If passed, the legislation could require states to rewrite their BEAD plans, potentially delaying the speed of broadband deployment by over a year.
Notes
- Criteria for BEAD networks is that they are capable of delivering service at (i) a speed of not less than 100 Mbps for downloads; and (ii) a speed of not less than 20 Mbps for uploads; and (iii) latency less than or equal to 100 milliseconds.
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