Trump’s Assistant Secretary of Commerce and administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Arielle Roth, outlined the Administration’s policies for reforming the wasteful Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program in a speech at the Hudson Institute this week. According to Roth, “For years, BEAD was weighed down by red tape and extralegal conditions that slowed down states, deterred providers, and sidelined innovative technologies.”
As Breitbart has previously reported, BEAD was filled with DEI mandates, climate-regulation burdens, and a fiber-technology bias that virtually banned viable satellite and fixed-wireless solutions — despite fiber being inefficient in sparsely populated areas. Rather than prioritizing connecting rural Americans most cost-effectively, BEAD under Biden became an ideological vehicle — so much so that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) admitted four years after the bill’s passage that it hadn’t connected a single household.
The $42.5 billion federal program prioritized woke corporate mandates and handouts to the politically connected fiber and broadband lobby, while discriminating against far more efficient Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Satellite technology, such as SpaceX’s Starlink. Four years after it passed, it proposed spending tens of thousands of dollars per household, but failed to connect a single American.
Assistant Secretary Roth agreed, noting that “For years, BEAD was weighed down by red tape and extralegal conditions that slowed down states, deterred providers, and sidelined innovative technologies.” However, she alluded to the problem of state governments undermining the Trump administration’s priorities on BEAD, explaining, “As BEAD moves toward final plan approvals, delivering results means keeping defaults to an absolute minimum. A program this large and unprecedented must be managed with discipline and careful oversight. That means meticulously reviewing state proposals to ensure compliance, prevent distortionary outcomes, and protect against waste.”
As Breitbart noted, far-left activist and failed Democratic FCC nominee Gigi Sohn is now working as a lobbyist for the Fiber Industry. Sohn is working with state governments, including some Republican led states, to try to evade the Trump Administration’s required reforms. Assistant Secretary Roth made clear that the Trump NTIA would not allow this, stating that the Administration is willing to identify and reject “outlier projects with unreasonably expensive costs or questionable feasibility, insisting instead on more practical and cost-effective alternatives.”
Roth specifically highlighted the importance of LEO Satellites for connecting rural America. She recognized that the now high speed of LEO “would not have been possible if the market wasn’t challenged to find alternative solutions.”
While the Fiber and Cable lobby is still working with states still trying to work around the Trump administration’s priorities, Gigi Sohn has admitted defeat. In a recent LinkedIn Post, Sohn wrote that “BEAD isn’t going to do the job of closing the digital divide and we need community-based solutions to get it done.” Of course, to Sohn, “closing the digital divide” is a euphemism for the Biden administration’s crony and woke policies. She continued, “We still have a huge gap in connectivity and adoption, and will continue to do so even after the BEAD money is spent. And regardless of what policymakers are saying — the private sector won’t finish the job – if they wanted to/could, wouldn’t they have done so already? It’s up to state, county and local leaders to find other solutions.”
While Sohn will no doubt continue to try to find state-level Republicans to undermine Trump’s agenda, under the leadership of Arielle Roth and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, the NTIA is making massive progress in reversing Biden’s BEAD failures.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
