NASHVILLE -- State broadband officials and broadband industry executives repeatedly voiced frustration Monday at Fiber Connect 2025 about BEAD's state of limbo. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's testimony Thursday before the House Appropriations Committee on his department's FY 2026 budget request might give states and providers stronger direction, said Lori Adams, Nokia's vice president-broadband policy and funding strategy, at the Fiber Broadband Association's annual trade show and conference. But concrete guidance from Commerce and NTIA will almost surely take longer, she added. Also at Fiber Connect 2025, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, D-Wash., said the U.S. is squatting on much of its spectrum holdings (see 2506020012).

NASHVILLE -- The federal government is warehousing or squatting on much of its spectrum holdings, Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said Monday at the Fiber Broadband Association’s Fiber Connect 2025 trade show and conference. Also at the event, states and providers complained about BEAD uncertainty (see 2506020047).

The Trump administration proposed an increase in the FCC’s annual funding for FY 2026 but simultaneously sought in its budget request, released Friday night, to cut appropriations for NTIA and Agriculture Department broadband programs, including ReConnect. It also confirmed plans to rescind much of CPB’s advance funding for FY26 and FY27 (see 2505280050). Meanwhile, PBS and a Minnesota public TV station sued the administration Friday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to stop President Donald Trump’s executive order blocking CPB from distributing funding for PBS and NPR (see 2505020044).

Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision limiting the scope of environmental reviews could ease permitting for infrastructure projects, including broadband buildout, said advocacy groups and policy analysts.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Commerce Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Communications Subcommittee ranking member Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., pressed the Trump administration Friday to immediately release the $42.5 billion Congress allocated to NTIA’s BEAD program. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in March began a “rigorous review” of BEAD aimed at revamping the program (see 2503050067). Meanwhile, National Lifeline Association Chairman David Dorwart marked the one-year anniversary of the formal lapse of the FCC’s affordable connectivity program (see 2405310070).

Federal budget-cutting could mean degraded quality and timeliness of emergency alerts during major storms and disasters, emergency response and weather experts tell us. A number of advocacy groups, from the Urban Institute to the Natural Resources Defense Council, have raised concerns about budget cuts for the Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster response. Others say budgetary issues won't harm emergency alerting, and the system remains robust.

Rate regulation would harm competition in the broadband marketplace and undermine efforts to close the digital divide, said ACA Connects in a new study released Thursday. The study, conducted in partnership with Cartesian, found four "cascading" effects of rate regulation: less investment, less competition, a slowdown in pricing declines and harm spillover.

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez said at a listening session and panel discussion hosted Wednesday by Free Press that she doesn’t expect the agency to “liberally” use a good-cause exception to notice-and-comment rules or delegated authority when it takes action on the “Delete” docket. “I am hopeful that, in fact, a lot of these rules will come up to vote,” she said at the Los Angeles event, which was part of her “First Amendment Tour” (see 2504240064).

A U.S Supreme Court decision Thursday requiring judicial deference to agency environmental reviews of infrastructure projects could have implications for broadband deployment, drawing attention from FCC Chairman Brendan Carr. “For too long, America’s infrastructure builds have been held back by reams of red tape,” wrote Carr in a post on X about Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado. “But today, the Supreme Court helps to correct course -- eliminating needless environmental hoops. As the FCC works to unleash more infrastructure builds, permitting reforms like this are key.”

While BEAD is critical to serving the most difficult-to-reach 5.5 million homes in the U.S., the money available through the program pales in comparison to what providers are spending to bolster broadband connectivity, Fiber Broadband Association CEO Gary Bolton said in an interview. The slow pace in making changes to the BEAD program has been “a colossal failure” on NTIA’s part, he added. FBA will hold its Fiber Connect conference next week in Nashville.