Fact Sheet: Ending Biden's Broadband Burdens

The Trump Administration announced critical reforms to the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program. Reforms include:

• Instituting a Technology Neutral Approach: The National Telecommunications and Information Administration will adopt a technology-neutral approach for the BEAD subgrantee selection process by returning the definition of a “Priority Broadband Project” to statutory language. 
• Removing Burdensome Labor and Employment Requirements: NTIA will limit the labor and employment requirements of the statute to a certification of compliance with existing law and eliminate the central planning and diversity, equity, and inclusion labor and employment edicts that disadvantaged both workers and providers, drove up costs, and undermined broadband buildouts.
• Eliminating Climate Change Requirements: NTIA will eliminate obligations to conduct climate analyses. Instead, NTIA guidance will focus on ensuring reliability and resiliency of the network. 
• Ending Oppressive Net Neutrality Requirements: NTIA will eliminate the Notice of Funding Opportunity requirement that imposed wholesale access requirements on applicants. 
• Removing Coordination Requirements: NTIA will eliminate requirements on Eligible Entities to consult with a myriad of special interest groups, including representatives from demographic and identity-based organizations. 
• Ending Needless Municipal Broadband Paperwork: NTIA will eliminate the requirement in the Final Proposal that Eligible Entities favor participation of non-traditional broadband providers (such as municipalities or political subdivisions).
• Ending Backdoor Rate Regulation: NTIA will refuse to accept any low-cost service option proposed in an Eligible Entity’s Final Proposal that attempts to impose a specific rate level and instead call on Eligible Entities to permit providers to propose their existing, market-driven low-cost plans to meet the statutory low-cost requirement.
• Streamlining Environmental Reviews: NTIA will require the use of an NTIA-developed tool for broadband permitting. The Environmental Screening and Permitting Tracking Tool is designed to accelerate National Environmental Policy Act processing timelines by several months and will be utilized by all Eligible Entities deploying BEAD.