Thune, Guthrie Open to BEAD Funding Rollback in Next Congress
Two top Republican lawmakers who will have leading roles during the next Congress told us this month they're open to clawing back the $42.5 billion allocated to the BEAD program amid their party’s vocal opposition to NTIA's implementation of it during the Biden administration. Some stakeholders told us funding rescission would be difficult to execute. They insist congressional Republicans and President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration will see a revamp of BEAD’s rules and practices as much more feasible (see 2410210043).
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Outgoing Senate Communications Subcommittee ranking member John Thune, R-S.D., who will become the chamber’s majority leader Jan. 3, told us, “I don't know why you wouldn’t pull” BEAD’s funding. He echoed other Republicans' claims that NTIA hasn’t "hooked up a single household” more than three years after Congress enacted the BEAD money as part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (see 2111080067). Only one “telephone provider in my state” has “figured out how they can qualify and meet all the conditions [NTIA is] insisting on,” Thune said.
Incoming House Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., told us he sees a funding rescission as possible. “I'm for pulling back the money” if that’s what Republicans support, he said. Congress can roll back the BEAD funding because NTIA hasn’t “really spent” the money yet, even though it’s expected to have fully obligated it by year’s end (see 2412030050). “But if we’re going to keep the money, we need to use it” more effectively, Guthrie said.
Both GOP leaders’ embrace of a potential rollback is notable because Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, earlier urged leaders of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency advisory group to recommend that lawmakers “pull the plug” on BEAD funding as part of the group’s bid to slash $2 trillion from the federal budget (see 2412030050). Ernst told us she’s proposing “we try to claw back” the BEAD money because she considers it a part of Congress’ broader COVID-19 pandemic aid.
Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who will become panel chairman in January, told us, “I've been very clear that I think there need to be serious reforms” to BEAD. He pressed NTIA in November to pause “unlawful, extraneous BEAD activities” before Trump returns to office and warned of a wholesale review of the initiative (see 2411220035). Cruz previously urged states to return unused BEAD money if they have adequate funding from other federal broadband programs (see 2309150069).
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., a lead IIJA negotiator, remains adamantly opposed to a clawback. “West Virginia’s on the cusp of actually getting” its $1.2 billion BEAD allocation, so “I’m not in favor” of taking that money away now, she told us. Capito is concerned more Republicans will begin to back a rollback, “but we’re a long way” from that being the caucus’ majority preference.
'Uncharted Territory'
Senate Communications Chairman Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico and other Democrats are concerned about calls for a BEAD rollback but predicted Republicans will face political problems if they actually try to remove the funding. “If my colleagues want to roll back infrastructure money,” particularly funding earmarked for rural areas, “they can go explain” that decision to their constituents and face the repercussions, Lujan told us. “It would be a big mistake,” especially if the U.S. wants “to catch up” with other countries in reaching universal connectivity.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., who co-led work on IIJA’s broadband section, told us she “would be surprised” if Republicans followed through on threats to defund BEAD. Large parts of New Hampshire “don’t have access” to broadband “and I would guess that’s true in lots of other places around the country,” she said: “I would think [Republicans] would have a real vested interest in seeing that money get spent, and the fiber get deployed.” House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Doris Matsui, D-Calif., said “it would be ridiculous” if Republicans try removing BEAD funding because most of it “is for rural areas” that party members represent.
Citizens Against Government Waste President Tom Schatz said any “effort to take back money that has been sent out of Congress … is very difficult to do,” particularly “given the minimal majority” Republicans will have in the House next Congress and the 60-vote threshold to clear legislation in the Senate. It could be “even more complicated” to roll back BEAD because its mission is “an objective with which everyone agrees,” he said: “It might be less difficult” to approve changes to BEAD requirements Republicans consider onerous.
Public Knowledge Broadband Policy Director Alisa Valentin said the BEAD rollback threats are concerning and “unhelpful” given the work states have already done to plan for their funding allocations. “The real waste, fraud and abuse” involving the program “would be if Congress ends up clawing back those funds,” she said: It’s unclear how such an action would be feasible, but it would likely “be very messy. We’re in uncharted territory.”