BEAD Nondeployment Funds: Going, Going, Gone?

We now know the next Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment fight, and it might be the biggest one yet. On September 5, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration issued a press release talking about the progress of the Benefit of the Bargain round for States to award BEAD funding. The press release announced that 36 of 56 States and Territories have made tentative BEAD awards and have submitted their final proposals to NTIA. The header of the Press Release is that “Plans include broad range of technologies and save American taxpayers at least $13 billion”. The Press Release went on to say, “In the plans submitted today, states are already projecting savings of at least $13 billion for American taxpayers”. The $13 billion referenced by NTIA is the difference between the funding allocated to each state for BEAD and the amount being awarded to BEAD grants. According to the legislation that created BEAD, any funds not spent on infrastructure were to remain with the States to pursue other activities related to improving broadband. When NTIA issued the new rules for making BEAD grants in June, the agency said that funding for non-deployment funds was under review. It’s now pretty clear that NTIA plans not to expend the non-deployment funds and take credit for saving the expenditure for the U.S. Treasury.