Some Hope for Non-Deployment Funds?

There is still some glimmer of hope that states will see some of the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program non-deployment funds. I call it a glimmer of hope because the issue is far from settled. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration's (NTIA) intention for the funds isn't clear—on December 2, Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information Arielle Roth said she was “operating under the assumption that the states will get to use their BEAD savings." But on December 21, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was still taking credit for having saved taxpayers about $21 billion through changes in the BEAD rules. Obviously, none of this makes NTIA’s intention clear for non-deployment funds. The issue is further complicated by an Executive Order from the White House that said that non-deployment funds can’t be flowed to States that adopt “onerous” restrictions on Artificial Intelligence (AI). There is no way to know what the restriction on non-deployment due to AI will mean. A sizable majority of states either have already passed AI regulations or are considering them. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) reacted to the Executive Order by saying that Florida absolutely reserves the right to regulate AI, and I suspect a lot of state legislatures feel that way. I guess it will boil down to how NTIA interprets the term “onerous” regulation in the Executive Order. The bottom line of all of this is that it’s clear as mud about whether States will see non-deployment funds, but the issue is not dead. We’ll probably know more by the end of the first quarter of 2026.