Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

On May 14, the Biden-Harris Administration hosted a Rural Communities in Action event at the White House to highlight how the Administration is investing in rural communities.

Congresswoman Yvette Clarke (D-NY) led 121 of her colleagues in a bipartisan letter to Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) urging them to include funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program in legislation to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). “We write today to express our serious concern regarding the impending lapse of funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP).

Eric Frederick, the Chief Connectivity Officer for the Michigan High-Speed Internet Office, is supremely confident. “I do believe it’s going to be enough,” he said when asked whether the $1.5 billion in Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) funding allotted to the state will be enough to get broadband to everyone. The healthy allocation leads Frederick to exclaim rather confidently that Michigan’s unserved and underserved will be largely connected with fiber.

As lawmakers debate funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program, a bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation that would change the program in an effort to win more support for it and possibly improve its long-term viability. A group of senators introduced legislation that would revise eligibility criteria, among other things. The compromise is seen as necessary to win over skeptics of the program.

Despite the challenges we’ve faced, we’ve emerged stronger and poised for future growth. Investing in high-speed internet is an Administration-wide priority, with a goal of connecting every American by 2030. It’s a key example of our agenda to expand our economy’s capacity to produce in order to drive growth while increasing opportunity for people and places that haven’t had enough of it.

On May 9, 2024, Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) introduced new legislation to strengthen the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), complete the equipment removal of China-based telecommunications companies, Huawei and ZTE, and allow the Federal Communications Commission to auction certain spectrum licenses to create more responsive networks for consumers. The bill would:

If all goes well, the $42.5 billion in BEAD funding that Congress allotted in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act should be enough to extend broadband coverage across the country. But it will depend on how states and territories use the money. The first half of 2024 is a critical juncture as states solicit feedback and approval of their Initial Proposals from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which administers the BEAD program.

The National Digital Inclusion Alliance has warned policymakers about digital redlining, a discriminatory practice that prevents certain populations from having internet access, since 2017. Thanks in part to these warnings and advocacy efforts, the creation of digital discrimination rules was mandated in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Rules for the $42.5 billion Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) rural broadband funding program give individual states considerable leeway in how they define project areas—and broadband providers applying for funding should expect to see considerable variation from one state to the next. Depending on the state, providers may even be able to define their own project areas. There is considerable variation among states that are allowing providers to define their own project area. For example, Louisiana established clusters of Hex9s, which the state calls sub project areas (SPAs).

A delegation of US Congress members part of the Congressional Western Caucus and House Commerce Committee was in Bakersfield (CA) on May 10. At a nearly two-hour field hearing, Central Valley farming representatives joined rural internet service providers in highlighting the importance of high-speed connectivity to precision agriculture as well as poor communities reliant on computers for health care, education and remote work. While there was little question how vital internet service has become to rural areas, the underlying question was what role the government should have in not only he