48 Hill Democrats Urge Commerce Reverse BEAD Rewrite; Senate Confirms Dabbar
Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina led a Wednesday letter with 46 other congressional Democrats, pressing Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to reverse NTIA's rewrite of rules for its $42.5 billion BEAD program (see 2506060052). Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz of Texas and other Republicans have praised the BEAD rewrite (see 2506100071), while Democrats argue NTIA's requirement that jurisdictions resubmit their plans for reexamination will further delay the funding rollout. Senate Commerce ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Communications Subcommittee ranking member Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., were among others who signed the letter.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
“We urge you to ensure that states receive the full funding and flexibility they retained prior to the issuance of the restructuring notice to fully meet” BEAD's objectives, the Democratic lawmakers wrote Lutnick. “The restructuring notice appears to violate [a 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act requirement] that funding recipients must ‘ensure coverage of broadband service to all unserved locations’ before using any funds for other purposes … by allowing applicants to exclude certain unserved locations. Such an allowance would defy bipartisan congressional intent, which was predicated on the understanding that public investment was needed to achieve universal service precisely because building the infrastructure to cover many rural areas was too costly to be profitable.”
The rewritten rules will “likely result in others receiving worse service [by deprioritizing projects involving fiber, which is] faster and more reliable and can scale speeds much more easily,” the Democrats said. The revamp “also undermines [IIJA's] provisions designed to ensure that broadband service is affordable and put to good use [by removing] specific requirements that ensured that participating providers would provide a low-cost internet option for low-income customers as required by the statute.”
The Senate voted 56-40 Wednesday night to confirm former Energy Department official Paul Dabbar to be deputy commerce secretary, despite a hold that Commerce member Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., placed on him and other Commerce Department nominees earlier this month over concerns that a BEAD rewrite would slow Nevada’s receipt of its part of that funding (see 2506090051). Cantwell and Klobuchar were among four Democratic caucus members who voted Wednesday to confirm Dabbar. Cantwell and other Commerce Democrats grilled Dabbar on BEAD during his May confirmation hearing (see 2505010036).