Level of Government

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr ended the FCC’s consideration of a rulemaking proposal that would have subjected tower builds to environmental reviews. That proposed rulemaking plan had been under consideration at the FCC since 2022. He said, “It is time for America to build. It is time to unleash the growth and opportunity that has been stifled by misguided and outdated infrastructure policies. Just look back at the last four years.

The Trump administration is spurring confusion as it seeks to implement a sweeping freeze of federal assistance, undermining laws Congress has enacted in recent years.

Joshua Breitbart, Senior Vice President of New York’s Empire State Development, has spent most of his career working on broadband projects of one kind or another. In early 2022, Governor Kathy Hochul (D-NY) announced the formation of the Empire State Development ConnectALL initiative in her “State of the State” address.

The Minnesota Office of Broadband Development (OBD) received over $12 million from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to implement its Digital Opportunity Plan using Digital Equity Capacity Grant Program funds.

The American people elected Donald Trump to be President of the United States and gave him a mandate to increase the impact of every federal taxpayer dollar. In Fiscal Year 2024, of the nearly $10 trillion that the Federal Government spent, more than $3 trillion was Federal financial assistance, such as grants and loans. Career and political appointees in the Executive Branch have a duty to align Federal spending and action with the will of the American people as expressed through Presidential priorities.

On January 24, 2025, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr ended the FCC’s consideration of a 2024 proposal that sought to regulate so-called “bulk billing” arrangements. These bulk billing programs have enabled families living in apartments and other multi-tenant environments to pay lower prices for Internet service. Chairman Carr said, "During the Biden-Harris Administration, FCC leadership put forward a ‘bulk billing’ proposal that could have raised the price of Internet service for Americans living in apartments by as much as 50 percent.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-TX) led 13 Senate Commerce Republicans in introducing a resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act (CRA) that would nullify a partisan FCC order. As adopted, the Biden administration’s Wi-Fi Hotspot Order expanded the Universal Service Fund (USF) to subsidize Wi-Fi hotspots for off-campus use by schoolchildren. This partisan order, strongly opposed by then-Commissioner Brendan Carr and Commissioner Nathan 

This third Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) will invest in software solutions for industry verticals and integration automation to further drive Open Radio access Network (Open RAN) adoption. It is comprised of two specific research focus areas:

A nearly-finished project to upgrade Pennsylvania Turnpike tolls could end up boosting broadband access across the state.

Over the next 12 to 18 months, the vast majority of the $40 billion or in broadband deployment funding that U.S. Congress enacted in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will have been allocated to specific internet service providers (ISPs) for specific projects. Unless something goes wrong, all the roughly 6 million to 7 million BSLs targeted by the Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program will be included in some BEAD project. But the hardest part of the work will still lie ahead.