Washington has a well-earned reputation for finding new and creative ways to spend taxpayer money. So when President Trump’s reforms to the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program cut the estimated cost of connecting rural America roughly in half—from $42.5 billion down to about $21 billion—the first instinct of many interests was not to celebrate the savings, but to start lobbying on how to spend them.
In a perfect world, those savings would be returned to the U.S. Treasury. Taxpayers would get the benefit of a program that accomplished its goal for less money than anticipated—a rare but welcome outcome in Washington. Unfortunately, the BEAD program’s authorizing statute, the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, stipulates that states may use remaining funds for certain “non-deployment” purposes that advance the program’s goal of closing the digital divide. That law was passed by a different Congress and signed by a different administration, so NTIA has to work within those constraints.
In other words, the money is staying in the system. That makes it all the more important for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which administers the program, to ensure those dollars are spent wisely.
NTIA recently took suggestions from industry, non-profit organizations, and individuals on how the agency should condition remaining BEAD funds. It’s important to remember the program’s primary goal and that of the authorizing statutemust be held firmly in mind, to ensure Americans have access to last-mile, fixed broadband service.
Many stakeholder suggestions may have merit in a vacuum, but they stray from that core goal. Some suggested funding digital skills training and broadband adoption programs. Others asked the program to support a new air traffic control system. And some advocated for projects that tend to lead to wasteful overbuilding of existing service, such as middle-mile fiber, “open access networks,” and Wi-Fi for apartment buildings.Some asked the agency to fund commercial mobile wireless service.
Regardless of how compelling the pitch may be, that would be contrary to the statute’s directive to focus on fixed broadband—and the kind of mission creep that NTIA must guard against. The more loosely NTIA defines allowable spending, the more the program risks becoming exactly what critics of federal spending always warn about: a pot of money that funds everything and accomplishes nothing.
So how should NTIA proceed? Start with the statute.
BEAD was passed to close the digital divide. The agency should be commended for finding a much more cost-effective way to ensure Americans have last-mile service. However, it is likely that the program’s initial bidders won’t reach every eligible location due to mapping errors or defaults from other broadband programs at the local, state, and federal level. NTIA would be wise to set aside some portion of remaining funds to address those gaps when they inevitably surface.
Beyond that reserve, any spending guidance NTIA issues should be narrowly tailored to the program’s original mission. Workforce development and permitting reform are reasonable candidates because they directly support deployment. But even popular ideas like upgrading 911 systems must be carefully conditioned to avoid wasteful spending that slips through the cracks under a veil of “public safety.”
The Trump administration deserves credit for the reforms that produced these savings. NTIA’s “Benefit of the Bargain” approach—embracing technological neutrality and cutting excessive deployment costs—proved that the federal government can deliver broadband for less when it gets out of its own way. The worst outcome now would be to squander that achievement by letting remaining funds drift toward purposes Congress never intended.
Fiscal discipline should not end when the savings start.
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