States Work to Address Barriers to Broadband Expansion

As policymakers in the nation’s states and territories explore how best to spend billions of dollars in federal infrastructure money intended to expand access to broadband, a key focus has been on how to avoid a host of potential obstacles that can impede or thwart their progress. Critically, stakeholders in a majority of states repeatedly raised the same key issues. Those included concerns over the supply chain of materials to build networks, the availability of trained workers, and the capacity for organizations, small providers, and local governments to engage with complicated federal programs. One issue, however, was mentioned in virtually every plan, the perennial asterisk on every infrastructure project’s timeline: cumbersome permitting processes. State legislatures have sought solutions to permitting issues. Although the full complexity of the process for infrastructure projects cannot realistically be addressed by any single jurisdiction, important bills were signed in the past year to focus on the problem and address some frequent causes of delays.