Sen Cruz requests information on BEAD Program

I write to request a detailed update on the major administrative delays in the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program that have resulted from unlawful red tape imposed by your agency [the National Telecommunications and Information Administration]. Despite the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) three-year-old clear statutory mandate to bring the internet to the unserved, your agency has failed to connect a single American. What NTIA has done with the money so far is create a nearly billion-dollar slush fund to “administer” the program. Specifically, NTIA has withheld $849 million in BEAD funding for its own budget. This appears to have enabled NTIA to impose excessive administrative burdens and pursue the Biden-Harris administration’s extreme left-wing social policies, without legal authority. NTIA has sought to misuse its BEAD authorities to impose rate regulation, unionized labor requirements, climate change regulations, technology mandates, and other extralegal policies on the States. This has continued despite Congress repeatedly reminding NTIA that Congress gave it no statutory authority to use BEAD for any of these social goals. I seek the following information concerning the administrative functioning of the BEAD program. Please provide this information by August 27, 2024.

1. A breakdown of administrative funding allocated and utilized by the NTIA, including for staffing (both state-based, and Washington, D.C.-based), operational costs, costs paid to the National Institute for Standards and Technology, costs paid for contract work outside of the federal government, and any other relevant expenditures.
2.  A list of each BEAD proposal submitted by a state to NTIA. In identifying each proposal, please provide:

a. The date on which the state submitted the proposal to NTIA;  

b. Whether NTIA approved the proposal;

c. Whether NTIA requested changes to be made to the proposal;  

d. For those proposals where NTIA requested changes to be made, the date NTIA requested those changes;

e. For those proposals NTIA requested changes to be made, indicate which of the following categories those changes concerned and provide a detailed description of the requested changes:  i. Labor Standards; ii. Utilization of Minority Business Enterprises/Women’s Business; Enterprises/Labor Surplus Area Firms; iii. Equitable Workforce Development; iv. Climate Assessment; v. Low-Cost Broadband Service Plan; vi. Middle Class Affordability Plan; vii. Open Access Prioritization; viii. Participation by Public Sector Providers; ix. Extremely High Cost Location Threshold; x. Other (please indicate the reason).

f. For those proposals NTIA approved, the date on which NTIA approved the proposal;  

g. For those proposals NTIA approved 90 or more days after NTIA received the proposal, the specific key factors that prevented NTIA from approving the proposal as originally submitted; and

h. For those proposals NTIA has not approved, the reason(s) why NTIA has not approved the proposal.