Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry has a simple request for the Trump administration: Don't take our broadband money away.
Trump's Commerce Department rewrote the rules of the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) grant program, forcing states to change how they spend money earmarked for expanding broadband access. The overhaul led states to reduce spending on fiber networks and increase spending on satellite—although not to the extent sought by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who is demanding more money for his Starlink network.
Since states are spending less on deployment, and the program still has the $42 billion allocated by Congress, what happens to the leftover amount after money is spent on deploying broadband networks? Amid speculation that the Trump administration wants to return that money to the US Treasury, Louisiana's Republican governor is worried that states won't be able to use the full $42 billion. It's possible that half or more of the $42 billion won't be used to expand broadband.
"As the first state to submit our Final Proposal ahead of the September 4th deadline, we respectfully request that you continue to hew closely to the statute by directing that remaining BEAD allocations be invested in state-led initiatives, subject to NTIA [National Telecommunications and Information Administration] review, that advance the following key national priorities," Landry wrote in a Monday letter to Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick.
The US law that created BEAD is clear that the money can be used for more than sending subsidies to Internet service providers. The "key national priorities" specifically cited in Landry's letter were Trump's "AI Action Plan" along with Trump's "America First" and "Make America Great Again" plans for investing in education, workforce training, and growing US industries.
Request paired with praise for Trump admin
Landry's letter praised Lutnick's overhaul of BEAD, stating that "you have delivered in only a few months what the Biden NTIA failed to deliver in over three years of paperwork, endless reviews, and the piling-on of unnecessary and in some cases illegal regulatory burdens." The changes, Landry wrote, mean that "Louisiana and many other states will have significant remaining funds that can be further invested to advance the Administration's priorities."