Federal Broadband Programs

With $37 billion of the $42 billion in Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program based on the number of locations unserved by broadband, accurately measuring who is unserved is critical — both for the allocation of funds, but, more importantly, so people without access to real broadband can be connected.

US Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) and Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) led their Senate colleagues in a bipartisan letter to the Secretaries of the Departments of Interior, Agriculture, and Commerce about the need to expand high-speed internet access in rural communities. Internet providers are required to obtain permits from the federal government when installing telecommunications infrastructure on federal lands or for projects using federal funding. Right now, they face extensive delays in the permitting process.

Over the years, Iowa's demand for broadband infrastructure far outstripped the funding the state has been willing to supply. But the state is allocating millions in federal funding to help it reach its broadband goals. The latest funding comes from the U.S. Treasury's Capital Projects Fund.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) received approximately $36.70 billion in supplemental funding outside of its annual appropriation from three COVID-19 relief laws between 2020 and 2021: the CARES Act; the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA); and the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA). As of August 23, 2022, VA had obligated approximately 99 percent of its funds from the CARES Act and FFCRA and 56.9 percent of funds from ARPA.

President Joe Biden has pledged that every American will have access to affordable, reliable, high-speed internet. Digital equity—devices, skills and affordability that bring the internet to life—are a critical part of that mission. As part of that work, the Rural Utilities Service (RUS), a Rural Development (RD) agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), announces the acceptance of applications under the Distance Learning and Telemedicine (DLT) grant program for Fiscal Year (FY) 2023, subject to the availability of funding.

On December 1, 2022, the U.S. Treasury approved Missouri’s plan to dedicate all of its Capital Projects Fund allocation to extend the reach of broadband in the state. Agriculture is Missouri’s leading economic driver. Over 95,000 farms employ nearly 400,000 people, export more than $2.5 billion across the globe, and make economic contributions to the state of $88.4 billion. Missouri is second in the number of farms in the United States and ranks in the top 10 nationally for the production of eleven different agricultural products.

The Department of Treasury approved broadband projects in an additional six states under the American Rescue Plan’s Capital Projects Fund Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri and Utah. Together, these states will use their funding to connect more than 180,000 homes and businesses to affordable, high-speed internet.

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced that Hawaii received its first “Internet for All” grants for deploying high-speed Internet networks and developing digital skills training programs under the Biden-Harris Administration’s Internet for All initiative.

Gov Asa Hutchinson (R-AR) announced a state partnership with national non-profit EducationSuperHighway to develop programs and implement best practices to address broadband affordability in the state. An estimated 214,760 Arkansas’ households have access to a home broadband connection but are offline because they can't afford to connect. This broadband affordability gap is the number one cause of the nation’s digital divide, keeps 18 million U.S.

Since 2019, the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) ReConnect program has awarded millions of dollars in grants and loans to broadband providers for expanding service in rural areas. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) makes three recommendations to USDA on how to improve the ReConnect Program: