Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., has joined a call for the Trump administration to release broadband deployment funds and refrain from changing guidelines about what to do with the money.
Warner, a co-author and negotiator of the 2021 law that created the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program, says that President Donald Trump has been blocking the so-called BEAD dollars for months. Late last week, he co-signed a letter to Trump, calling on him to follow the law.
“This unprecedented move by the NTIA [National Telecommunications and Information Administration] will further delay our communities from having the connectivity they need to grow and thrive,” read the letter, which Warner and 11 other Democratic senators signed and sent on Friday.
Virginia qualified for $1.48 billion to expand internet access under the BEAD program. According to a statement on the Department of Housing and Community Development’s website, BEAD is the commonwealth’s “opportunity to finish the job” on access, while making long-term investments in broadband affordability and adoption.
In January, Trump halted funding for projects covered by BEAD’s parent law, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The Trump administration also announced that the NTIA would be revising BEAD program guidelines.
The NTIA notified all states a month ago that it would extend their final plan deadlines by 90 days, while it continues to review the BEAD rules. States had a year after their initial plans were approved to file those plans. The administration approved Virginia’s on July 26, so the state now will have until about Oct. 24 to submit its final proposal.
That plan will include all of the commonwealth’s award recommendations to internet service providers and their locations, along with plans for non-deployment funding for such tasks as bringing cellphone service to dead zones.
Then-President Joe Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also called the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, in 2021. Since Trump assumed office in January, his administration has looked to discontinue programs across government that it says involve diversity, equity and inclusion elements.
Virginia’s five-year BEAD plan centers on statewide access, affordability and adoption of services such as telehealth and workforce development training.
“We are prepared to work with the Trump administration on any program changes to make the program more efficient and streamline implementation,” said the state housing department’s deputy director, Todd Weinstein.
Virginia was the first state in the nation to submit a proposal and plans for a share of BEAD’s $42.5 billion to extend broadband service to underserved, mostly rural communities. The Department of Commerce has approved all of Virginia’s BEAD planning documents, and the commonwealth launched its application process in December, according to the housing department’s website.
In the Friday letter to Trump, the senators noted that Congress deferred to the states to address their own “unique challenges” in getting broadband to people in the nation’s farthest-flung locations. Forty-two states have begun or completed their BEAD application process, and three states with applications fully approved are waiting on the administration to release their funds.
“The attempts by NTIA to revise the state application process at this late stage will cause further delays to the program and leave rural and tribal communities behind in an increasingly connected economy,” the senators wrote.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin, in an address last week to a Virginia Cable Telecommunications Association-Broadband Association of Virginia conference, said that the state had received $3.22 billion in BEAD applications for broadband deployment, covering each of its 133,000 eligible locations. Multiple bidders are competing for similar ZIP codes, which accounts for a number higher than the $1.48 billion expected award to the state.
Virginia’s plan also includes non-deployment funding, which Youngkin told the broadband association meeting will focus on delivering cell service to dead zones, adding high-speed internet infrastructure to apartment buildings, and making networks more resilient to natural disasters and cybersecurity threats, as well as on telehealth, digital literacy, cybersecurity and precision agriculture.
“All of this work will make Virginia’s infrastructure strong and reliable in any situation,” Youngkin said.
All applications are subject to Youngkin’s review and approval, and then the NTIA would make the final funding recommendation.
Since January 2022, more than 150,000 previously unserved Virginia locations have gotten broadband access, a pace three-and-a-half times faster than any other state reporting that data, Youngkin told the group. About 200,000 other homes and businesses are part of a current broadband expansion project, he added.
It could be happening faster, Warner and other senators including Jacky Rosen, D-Nev.; Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M.; Raphael Warnock, D-Ga.; and Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., contended in the letter.
Among criticisms during the last presidential election season was that the Biden-Harris administration was slow to roll out the program after it was enacted into law. Youngkin spokesman Peter Finocchio said in a Tuesday email exchange that the Trump administration is “cleaning up the mess” Biden left.
“Virginia is leading the nation in effective and efficient broadband deployment, and despite being first in with the mountain of paperwork required under the Biden administration the funds still didn’t flow,” Finocchio wrote. “We are confident the new leadership at the Department of Commerce is focused on delivering results on this significant and important investment.”
Warner, in a statement emailed through a spokeswoman, said that he was one of the strongest proponents of broadband funding in the infrastructure law and was proud to work with those who made Virginia one of the first states ready to “get shovels in the ground.”
“With regard to the BEAD program, I’ll be the first to admit that I would’ve liked to see the previous administration move to start building faster,” he said. “Unfortunately, the additional roadblocks created by the Trump administration are making it more, not less, difficult to get broadband where it needs to go. Virginians deserve access to high-speed internet because they deserve to be able to participate in the 21st century economy.”
