Earlier this month, we reported that the Department of Commerce told a federal court it would reinstate the Digital Equity Competitive Grant Program and was targeting a December 2026 opening. Three things have happened since. The parties agreed to pause the litigation and put their remaining disagreements on the record. Judge John D. Bates set the dates by which the government must report its progress. And on August 25, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) published a notice in the Federal Register seeking public comment on the application forms for the reopened program, the first evidence outside the courtroom that the work is actually underway. Together, the three developments establish the schedule for reopening the grant program, but the paperwork step NTIA began complicates that timeline.

For the cities, counties, nonprofits, libraries, community colleges, workforce organizations, Tribes, and Native entities planning around a December window, the practical upshot is this: there is a narrow, open comment docket that closes October 26, 2026. NTIA is seeking comment on the application paperwork, not on how the program will work.

A Quick Recap

The Digital Equity Act of 2021 (DEA), part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, created the Digital Equity Competitive Grant Program (47 U.S.C. § 1724) to fund digital inclusion work. The Digital Equity Act directs NTIA to consider whether applications would increase internet access and broadband adoption among eight "covered populations" defined at 47 U.S.C. § 1721(8). The seventh—subparagraph (G), "individuals who are members of a racial or ethnic minority group"—is the provision at issue.

The government terminated the program in May 2025. The National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA), a nonprofit that had been notified of a Competitive Grant Program award, sued. On July 15, 2026, Judge Bates held that subparagraph (G) is an unconstitutional racial classification but that it is severable—meaning that provision alone can be set aside while the rest of the statute continues to operate. A Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) is the document that announces a federal grant competition, sets the rules, and opens the application window.

The Case is Now on Hold

NTIA "will reinstate the Digital Equity Competitive Grant Program, 47 U.S.C. § 1724, in a manner that does not implement § 1721(8)(G), but that otherwise incorporates the statutory requirements," and after the NOFO is issued, will review applications "consistent with the statutory evaluation criteria." The parties to the lawsuit agreed to meet and confer on the NOFO's status by October 16, 2026.

In a joint status report filed August 17, 2026, NDIA and the government asked the court to stay proceedings—including the government's deadline to answer the complaint and discovery—until two weeks after NTIA issues the NOFO, or January 15, 2027, whichever is earlier.

They also agreed to put off the mootness question. A case becomes moot when there is no longer a live dispute for a court to resolve—and if NTIA reopens the program, the government will likely argue NDIA has already gotten what it sued for, leaving nothing to decide. The parties agreed to propose a briefing schedule on that question "at a later date as necessary," with the stay to remain in place while they do.

The parties have also agreed that, after the NOFO is issued, they may discuss extending the stay until awards are actually made, meaning the case could remain frozen well past January.

On August 18, 2026, Judge Bates entered a "minute order" (a short ruling docketed directly by the court, without a separate written opinion) adopting the stay and the meet-and-confer deadline as proposed, and ordering joint status reports by October 23, 2026, December 7, 2026, and January 15, 2027.

Three Fights the Filing Put on the Record

Agreeing to a pause did not mean agreeing on much else, and the August 17 filing devotes separate sections to each side's remaining objections.

How closely the government will be watched.

NDIA asked for status reports every 30 days to ensure prompt attention to a reinstatement "unduly delayed due to Defendants' actions that are the subject of this litigation." The government asked for 60 days, arguing its commitment to reopen the program "is entitled to a presumption of regularity" (the principle that courts assume agencies act properly unless shown otherwise).

Judge Bates chose neither. He set three fixed dates roughly six weeks apart rather than a recurring interval.

Whether four months is too long.

NDIA "believes that four months to issue the NOFO is longer than reasonably necessary."  The government objected, citing the drafting required, the Paperwork Reduction Act, inter- and intra-agency clearances, and "NTIA's obligation to simultaneously administer various other grant programs, such as the $42 billion Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program." 

The government also supplied a benchmark based on NTIA's history: NTIA began work on the first Competitive Grant Program NOFO in December 2023 and "took seven months to draft, approve, and ultimately publish that NOFO, in July 2024." The current timeline "would cut the previous NOFO's timeline nearly in half."

Whether NDIA gets to hand NTIA a to-do list.

NDIA attached two pages of suggestions for how the reopened program should run, including funding, prior applicants, deadlines, and scoring. The government objected not only to the substance but to the filing of the suggestions at all, arguing that a grant applicant cannot use a lawsuit to direct how an agency runs a competition. The disagreement matters to the field beyond this case: NDIA's list is the closest thing on the public record to what digital inclusion practitioners want the new notice for the program to look like.

What NDIA Asked For

NDIA attached its suggestions as Exhibit 1, which opens by proposing that changes to the NOFO "should be limited to the scope of the issue at hand in the case and administrative procedures to ensure the smooth and timely allocation of funds." Beyond that, NDIA makes three sets of requests:

1. On money: Combine fiscal year 2024, 2025, and 2026 funds—"all remaining funding made available under the DEA Competitive Grant program"—into a single notice, released in one round.
2. On prior applicants: "The 65 Organizations originally recommended for award, including the three whose contracts were terminated, should have the option to revise their original application and resubmit." Why? The new NOFO must follow the same statute, and each of those organizations "spent substantial time, resources, and capacity" on applications and on contract and budget negotiations with NTIA and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a sister agency within the Department of Commerce that aids in NTIA grant approvals.
3. On timing: A 60-day application period (extended if the deadline falls over the Christmas or New Year holidays); webinars and technical assistance throughout; rolling awards beginning within 45 days of the application deadline; fully executed contracts for 95% of funds within 120 days of the deadline; and use of "[t]he original rubric" to score applications.

The government "oppose[s] the inclusion of [Exhibit 1] containing Plaintiff's suggestions as a court filing and any notion that [the government is]—or indeed could be—bound by the same." The government characterizes the requests as "wholly untethered from [the Department of Commerce's] statutory obligations," and argues that the application deadline, contract timeline, scoring rubric, and rolling-award decision "are committed to the agency's discretion," citing Swinomish Tribal Community v. FERC, 627 F.2d 499, 510 (D.C. Cir. 1980). The government states: "Plaintiff may not reshape this case into a vehicle for general interest-group oversight of the agency." It adds that NDIA "is welcome to submit a new grant application when NTIA publishes the NOFO."

Nothing in the July ruling requires NTIA to adopt any of this, and several items on NDIA's list are conventional matters of agency discretion. The exhibit's two central asks are that NTIA reuse its prior scoring rubric and honor its prior award recommendations.

The court said nothing about Exhibit 1​.

The government asked that Exhibit 1 be kept out of the court file and did not get that; NDIA asked the court to hold the government to the exhibit's contents and did not get that either. The August 18 order neither struck the exhibit, nor addressed the government's objection to its filing, nor commented on its contents. 

What the Comment Docket Is—and Isn't

On August 25, 2026, NTIA published a Paperwork Reduction Act notice, opening a 60-day period for public comment on the application forms for the reopened program. Comments are due October 26, 2026, by mail to Jennifer Duane, Director of Grants Management, Administration, and Compliance in NTIA's Office of Internet Connectivity and Growth, or by email to broadbandusa@ntia.gov with "Competitive Grant Program Application Forms Comment" in the subject line. 

NTIA cannot lawfully accept grant applications without approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB),¹ so this notice is mandatory. NTIA published the notice while the forms are still being drafted, which runs the 60-day clock and the drafting work simultaneously.

NTIA is amending existing paperwork, not building from scratch. Every federal form that collects information from the public requires OMB approval, and each approved package is assigned a control number. NTIA is not seeking a new one. The notice lists the request as a "Revision of a current information collection" under OMB Control Number 0660–0055—the clearance NTIA obtained for the 2024 application round. Revising an existing package is generally faster than clearing a new one, which is part of why a December opening is plausible at all. The form numbers themselves are still listed as "TBD."

The forms themselves aren't in the notice​. The notice lists "Form Number(s): TBD" and does not include or link to the instruments, so commenters are responding without seeing what NTIA proposes to collect. The notice invites comment on four questions: 1) whether the collection is necessary and has practical utility, 2) whether the burden estimate is accurate, 3) how to improve the quality and clarity of what is collected, and 4) how to reduce the reporting burden. Two of those are answerable in the abstract—an organization that spent 18 hours on a 2024 application can say whether 18 hours is the right estimate, and can propose specific reductions. Two are difficult to answer about an instrument no one has seen.

The docket does not cover program design. NTIA is not seeking comments on the funding notice, the scoring rubric, eligibility, funding levels, or how NTIA will weigh applications against seven covered populations rather than eight. A funding notice is not subject to notice-and-comment rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act, so no comparable opportunity exists on those questions.

NTIA is planning for 800 applicants; at 18 hours per application, the total burden hours will be 14,400, and the estimated cost to the public is $696,240. For comparison, NTIA reported receiving more than 700 applications in the 2024 round. 

Eligibility tracks the statute. The notice's "Affected Public" lists political subdivisions, agencies, and instrumentalities of a State; Indian Tribes, Alaska Native entities, and Native Hawaiian organizations; not-for-profit foundations, corporations, institutions, and associations that are not schools; community anchor institutions; local educational agencies; entities carrying out workforce development programs; other eligible entities; and partnerships among them. 

The calendar does not obviously fit. Once comments close on October 26, NTIA must then review them, prepare the clearance package, and publish a second notice allowing an additional 30 days before OMB takes up the request. Federal guidance on the clearance process indicates that OMB typically decides within 60 days of submission or of the second notice's publication, whichever is later, and that agencies generally budget six to nine months for a clearance from development through approval. Even if NTIA were able to publish the second notice within days of the comments closing, a typical review would conclude in early January. The Paperwork Reduction Act permits emergency processing, and OMB can move faster than usual. But the December timeline does not fit within the ordinary sequence.

The Conspicuous Silence

The notice describes the program's purpose as "advancing broadband adoption, digital skills development, and access to public connectivity resources," and says NTIA will use the information it collects "to effectively review the proposed applications and budgets from eligible entities as defined by 47 U.S.C. 1724(b)."

The notice makes no mention of the statute's covered populations, of the severed provision, of the court's ruling, or of the litigation. A notice about forms is not necessarily where one would expect the statutory evaluation criteria to appear—but this notice is the first public document for the reopened program, and how NTIA will weigh applications against seven covered populations rather than eight remains unanswered.

What to Watch

As reimplementation of the Digital Equity Competitive Grant Program moves forward, we have these dates circled. 

October 16 and 23, 2026: the meet-and-confer, then the first status report. Both fall while the comment docket is still open.

October 26, 2026: comments in this latest proceeding close.

Whether a 30-day notice appears. Publication of a second notice would confirm the package is moving to OMB. The absence of another notice would not, by itself, prove that December has slipped, given the emergency-processing option, but the December 7 status report is the one that will tell readers whether the target is real.

January 15, 2027: the stay's outer limit, and the final status report the court has ordered.

The court has now set the dates on which the government must report progress on reopening the program, and NTIA has taken a step that is visible in the Federal Register rather than only in a legal brief. If the NOFO does not arrive, NDIA has reserved the right to ask the court to lift the stay and resume the case—but by the terms NDIA set out in the August 17 filing, that request turns on whether the NOFO is "inconsistent with the statutory requirements," not on whether it arrives late.

Notes

1. See 44 U.S.C. § 3506(c)(2)(A)

Also see:

• NDIA and Government Offer Joint Status Report in Digital Equity Act Case
• Commerce Targets December 2026 to Reopen Digital Equity Competitive Grants
• Court Rules the Digital Equity Act's Race Provision Is Unconstitutional—But Severable

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