Department of Treasury

The American Rescue Plan has helped to power one of the strongest and most equitable recoveries on record while making investments which position our nation for economic success in the coming decades. Over 30,000 state, local, Tribal, and territorial governments have received State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds and made $24.3 billion in critical infrastructure investments in broadband, water, and sewer. Governments have reported budgeting nearly $7.3 billion in SLFRF funds towards broadband.

Today marks the second anniversary of the American Rescue Plan Act. Funding from the law provided over $25 billion to jumpstart universal broadband access—including broadband connections for 16 million students through the Emergency Connectivity Fund for schools and libraries to close the homework gap.

The US Department of the Treasury announced the approval of broadband projects in South Carolina under the Capital Projects Fund (CPF) in the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). The state estimates it will use its funding to connect over 31,000 homes and businesses to affordable, high-speed internet—representing 23% of locations still lacking high-speed internet access..

States are poised to play a critical role in the broadband funding landscape, but each state has a different approach to selecting broadband projects and administering funds.

The US Treasury Department awarded Kansas $15 million for digital equity work, with the money going toward public Wi-Fi, digital skills training, and more. In addition, 20 other states have applied for digital equity funding from the same source, with other awards expected to be made soon. “Kansas is just the first of many more to come,” said Joseph Wender director of the Treasury Department's Capital Projects Fund (CPF), which is part of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

Much of the hype around broadband funding is focused on the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, but money continues to flow from the Capital Projects Fund (CPF). To date, the US Treasury Department has awarded nearly $5 billion from the CPF across 33 states. That amount is almost half of the Treasury Department’s $10 billion allotment for the fund. States that have received funding thus far expect to connect 1.4 million households as a result. The CPF was created in March 2021, but Treasury only began approving state funding requests June 2022.

In his State of the State Address to the 65th Wyoming Legislature on January 9, 2019—just two days after he was sworn in as Wyoming’s 33rd governor—Mark Gordon (R-WY) outlined his top priorities: fiscal discipline, economic development, and improving Wyoming people’s quality of life. “I support the ongoing effort to improve access to broadband internet coverage throughout the state," he said.

Educational excellence. A 21st century economy. Protecting communities. Fiscal responsibility. Happy and healthy citizens.

Roger Timmerman, CEO of Utopia Fiber, called out the "army" of lobbyists that are keeping broadband speed standards down in the US. "The problem is we've got an $8 million a week lobbying effort from big telecom, and so anytime the federal government – or even now at the state level – when any of them try to raise that bar for the standard of what consumers need for broadband, there's an army of lobbying that goes up and opposes that.

The US Department of the Treasury announced the approval of high-speed internet projects in three additional states under the American Rescue Plan Act's (ARPA) Capital Projects Fund (CPF): Arizona, Tennessee, and Wyoming. Together, these states will use their funding to connect nearly 190,000 homes and businesses to affordable, high-speed internet.