A New Bill Aims to Track BEAD Progress

On April 30, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) introduced a bill that would require the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to track the progress of the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program. This bill would require NTIA's top official—Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and NTIA Administrator Arielle Roth—to take several new steps: publish a public dashboard tracking each state's BEAD progress, build a tool to help states track federal permits needed by their subgrantees, improve federal agencies' compliance with an existing statutory deadline for processing wireless infrastructure permit applications, and bring large broadband construction projects under a federal environmental and permitting coordination framework. The people most directly affected are state and territorial broadband office directors who must navigate federal permitting and report on BEAD deployment; BEAD subgrantees (internet service providers) that need federal permits to build; federal land management agencies that process those permits; and members of the public and policymakers who want to know how BEAD money is being spent and whether broadband networks are actually being built.