As NTIA Clears 55th BEAD Plan, Texas Makes Another Revision
Texas expects to soon get NTIA approval of its initial plan for the broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program, but first it must submit another revision of volume 2, said Texas Broadband Development Office (BDO) Director Greg Conte. NTIA approved plans for Alabama and Florida on Thursday, leaving Texas as the lone state or territory without NTIA approval to access its funding. Administrator Alan Davidson said on a Politico podcast Thursday he’s optimistic NTIA will be able to approve Texas’ plan “in the coming weeks.” He also chalked up Republicans’ recent criticisms of BEAD as a symptom of election-year politics.
Thursday’s NTIA approvals allowed Alabama and Florida to access their BEAD allocations of $1.4 billion and $1.1 billion, respectively. NTIA allocated a larger share of the $42.5 billion to Texas ($3.3 billion) than any other U.S. jurisdiction, but the state is still awaiting approval on volume 2 of its initial plan. NTIA approved the first volume on April 11. While announcing approval of California -- another state with a large allocation ($1.8 billion) -- on Oct. 4, Davidson said the agency aims to finish the reviews by month’s end (see 2410040035).
“Texas is a diverse state in terms of size, terrain, demographics and need, and we have been diligently working with NTIA in order to finalize a Texas-sized proposal that serves our vast state,” said Conte in an emailed statement. “We will submit our most recent revision of our proposal by Oct. 25 as requested by NTIA and expect NTIA to quickly approve our proposal that seeks to serve all Texans.” Conte said the delay won’t affect the Texas office’s timeline for BEAD. “This December, the office will administer a BEAD-compliant challenge process, which is the first step in ensuring BEAD dollars have the greatest impact on the state.”
NTIA referred us to Davidson’s comments on the Politico podcast. Davidson said Thursday Texas’ plan is “among the most complicated” NTIA has evaluated because it “has the most unserved locations in the country.” NTIA is “working very closely with the state office to make sure that their plan complies with the law and with the requirements of our program,” he said: “I'm very optimistic about this plan getting done and approved in the coming weeks.” Davidson cited NTIA approving all other states’ and territories’ plans as “an exciting development” that will mean they “will have access to the funds to go out now and start funding the providers who will be building these networks.”
The office of Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz of Texas, among the most vocal GOP critics of NTIA’s BEAD implementation (see 2206090072), didn’t comment on his state being the last jurisdiction to gain agency approval.
Davidson said he’s “a little surprised” that Republicans have increased their criticism of BEAD in recent months as the presidential election campaign’s tempo increased. Cruz and other GOP leaders began blaming Vice President Kamala Harris for BEAD’s shortcomings in August, when she became the Democrats’ presidential nominee. They cited her role in shepherding the broadband portion of President Joe Biden’s infrastructure spending proposal through Congress in 2021 (see 2408130061). Republicans are criticizing a range of NTIA BEAD requirements as hurting the program, including the agency’s handling of an Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act mandate that recipients offer a low-cost broadband option to customers (see 2409100058).
“We know that this program has bipartisan support” based on conversations with both Democratic and Republican states’ governors who have been enthusiastic about getting the BEAD money, Davidson said. “I know we're in a tricky political season,” but “I also know, and the evidence has shown, that these are programs that are wildly popular.” There's “a reason why we've built this program this way, which is to make sure that we aren't repeating the mistakes that have been made in past broadband programs,” he said.
Davidson cited the FCC at the end of the Trump administration launching the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund by officials who “did not take the time to build good maps, did not take the time to have good data.” One “of the biggest concerns that I hear out in the field right now is states struggling to deal with defaults from the RDOF program,” he said: NTIA is “committed to not making those same mistakes” because “those broken promises of the past are coming back to really be something that we have to deal with now.”