States and localities find themselves in a historic moment in relation to broadband investment. There is unprecedented federal funding for broadband infrastructure and adoption appropriated for distribution by state and local governments. Stakeholders like members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) have an interest in ensuring public officials work to ensure that publicly funded infrastructure projects are transparent, equitable, and contribute to creating high-quality career jobs. This report card evaluates fourteen county-level broadband projects funded through the State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds on how well they incorporated transparency, equity, and labor standards within their selection process, with a total available score of 20 points per project. The United States is in the midst of an extensive publicly subsidized broadband buildout to bring essential connectivity to unserved and underserved locations, and it is vital to ensure that publicly funded infrastructure projects are transparent, equitable, and contribute to creating high-quality career jobs.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) announced the fourth round of recommended awardees for last mile broadband projects as part of the $2 billion Last Mile Federal Funding Account Grant Program. This program expands broadband internet access for underserved and unserved communities across California. This announcement continues a rolling process of awards and recommendations, highlighting the state’s commitment to bridging the digital divide through Broadband For All. Many awardees are creating new networks, connecting the next generation to education, improving access to healthcare, and empowering rural communities for economic development and emergency connectivity. Combined, these proposed projects will serve predominantly disadvantaged and low-income communities across the state.

As with every U.S. election in recent memory, 2024’s is turning out to be a bit of a rollercoaster ride. We took a dive into how a Trump Federal Communications Commission (FCC) might look and act different from a Harris FCC, and what issues each might run into. 

• A Trump FCC: The Republican path forward for the FCC was sketched out by sitting Commissioner Brendan Carr in Chapter 28 of the 900-page Project 2025 plan [see Benton summary of Carr's plan], which proposes the actions the next Republican president should take within their first 180 days in office. In the document, Commissioner Carr advocates for policies that will reign in big tech, boost national security, and increase accountability at the agency, among other things.
• A Harris FCC: If Vice President Kamala Harris were to win, a Democratic FCC would likely focus on following through with items already in progress tackling issues like digital discrimination and artificial intelligence ad disclosures. Vice President Harris has been vocal about broadband being a necessity rather than a luxury and has also been a proponent of the now-lapsed Affordable Connectivity Program. She has also backed the reinstatement of net neutrality rules and was tapped by President Joe Biden to lead the charge on establishing regulations for federal use of artificial intelligence.

TikTok collected data about its users’ views on sensitive topics and censored content at the direction of its China-based parent company, the Justice Department said, making its most forceful case to date that the video-sharing app poses a national-security threat. The sensitive topics TikTok tracked included the views of its US-based users on gun control, abortion and religion, the Justice Department said. The Justice Department made the details public in court filings in response to a federal lawsuit TikTok filed in May 2024 arguing that a new law requiring a sale or ban of the popular social-media app violates the free-speech rights of millions of Americans under the banner of national security. The measure bans Chinese-backed TikTok in the US unless its parent company, ByteDance, divests itself of the platform by mid-January. The Justice Department said it based its conclusions about TikTok tracking sensitive views on the discovery of a software tool that lets U.S. employees of TikTok and ByteDance, also based in China, collect user information based on a user’s content, including their views on subjects such as gun control, abortion and religion.