House Energy and Commerce Press Releases are online, here.
https://democrats-energycommerce.house.gov/media/press-releases
Of interest, per the headline with "mayhem" being in part a use of federal public money redeployment by the Trump administration to enhance the wealth and prospects of a business venture of a Trump administration insider, in particular, Elon Musk (again per the headline).
That particular interest focus is this public press release
That item is headlined and subheadlined:
The link is above, so readers can access the entire item, an item having this excerpt:
In six weeks, however, the Trump Administration has not moved one state forward in the process. This is not a surprise since the Administration has instead prioritized dismantling the federal government by gutting agencies and firing federal employees. And Congressional Republicans have silently watched from the sidelines.
And we know Elon Musk is salivating over the prospect of steering BEAD dollars to his companies. Just yesterday the Wall Street Journal reported Musk’s SpaceX and Starlink could receive up to $20 billion worth of BEAD funding under new plans being developed inside the Commerce Department. Musk is a grifter, and Republicans are going to just stand by and watch.
To be clear, many of the changes our colleagues have suggested for BEAD can be done without delays or mandates. Loosening funding requirements they don’t like — while misguided — does not require states to go back to the drawing board. The pauses we see at the Department of Commerce, however, are like shackles on broadband providers in Louisiana, Nevada, and Delaware, who need only basic administrative approvals to begin their work in as little as six weeks. Instead, companies are sitting on tons of supply with a labor force questioning if there will be work next month.
Make no mistake: the current threat to the BEAD program could be avoided if only Republicans and the Trump Administration would get out of their own way and let this program move forward as intended. This opportunity to connect every American to reliable, high-speed internet will not come around again.
Dimensions of concern are more apparent from Ars Technica reporting:
Starlink benefits as Trump admin rewrites rules for $42B grant program
Trump admin decides fiber Internet won't be prioritized in BEAD grant program.
In part, starting text of the Ars item:
The Trump administration is eliminating a preference for fiber Internet in a $42.45 billion broadband deployment program, a change that is expected to reduce spending on the most advanced wired networks while directing more money to Elon Musk's Starlink and other non-fiber Internet service providers. One report suggests Starlink could obtain $10 billion to $20 billion under the new rules.
Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick criticized the Biden administration's handling of the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program in a statement yesterday. Lutnick said that "because of the prior Administration's woke mandates, favoritism towards certain technologies, and burdensome regulations, the program has not connected a single person to the Internet and is in dire need of a readjustment."
The BEAD program was authorized by Congress in November 2021, and the US was finalizing plans to distribute funding before Trump's inauguration. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), part of the Commerce Department, developed rules for the program in the Biden era and approved initial funding plans submitted by every state and territory.
The program has been on hold since the change in administration, with Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and other Republicans seeking rule changes. In addition to demanding an end to the fiber preference, Cruz wants to kill a requirement that ISPs receiving network-construction subsidies provide cheap broadband to people with low incomes. Cruz also criticized "unionized workforce and DEI labor requirements; climate change assessments; excessive per-location costs; and other central planning mandates."
Lutnick's statement yesterday confirmed that the Trump administration will end the fiber preference and replace it with a "tech-neutral" set of rules, and explore additional changes. He said:
Under my leadership, the Commerce Department has launched a rigorous review of the BEAD program. The Department is ripping out the Biden Administration's pointless requirements. It is revamping the BEAD program to take a tech-neutral approach that is rigorously driven by outcomes, so states can provide Internet access for the lowest cost. Additionally, the Department is exploring ways to cut government red tape that slows down infrastructure construction. We will work with states and territories to quickly get rid of the delays and the waste. Thereafter we will move quickly to implementation in order to get households connected.
Lutnick said the department's goal is to "deliver high-speed Internet access... efficiently and effectively at the lowest cost to taxpayers."
Democrat: “Musk is a grifter”
Plans to direct money to Starlink were criticized yesterday by House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.). "Musk is a grifter, and Republicans are going to just stand by and watch," Pallone said. Pallone also criticized Republicans for delaying BEAD after the Biden-era NTIA "rose to the occasion to build and implement the largest and most sophisticated broadband program in our nation's history... with independent planning and decision-making taking place in every single state and territory."
"Committee Republicans have done nothing but undermine our efforts to deploy more reliable and affordable broadband," and "the Trump Administration has not moved one state forward in the process" since taking over six weeks ago, he said.
The Biden NTIA decided that fiber architecture is the only technology that achieves the BEAD law's goal of building future-proof networks. "End-to-end fiber networks can be updated by replacing equipment attached to the ends of the fiber-optic facilities, allowing for quick and relatively inexpensive network scaling as compared to other technologies. Moreover, new fiber deployments will facilitate the deployment and growth of 5G and other advanced wireless services, which rely extensively on fiber for essential backhaul," the Biden NTIA said.
House Republicans yesterday held a hearing titled, "Fixing Biden's Broadband Blunder." A hearing memo said that BEAD should support fixed wireless and satellite broadband "in areas that are more remote or have terrain that makes deploying fiber or cable more difficult."
The Biden NTIA's rules did not prohibit the use of fixed wireless and satellite technologies, but defined "priority broadband projects" as those that use end-to-end fiber-optic architecture. The rules said states could choose a non-fiber provider if the cost of running fiber to a particular location is above the state's "extremely high cost per location threshold," or "for other valid reasons subject to approval" by the NTIA.
Don’t be “technology-blind,” broadband group says
The Benton Institute for Broadband & Society criticized what it called "Trump's BEAD meddling," saying it would "leave millions of Americans with broadband that is slower, less reliable, and more expensive." The shift to a "technology-neutral" approach should not be "technology-blind," the advocacy group said.
"Fiber broadband is widely understood to be better than other Internet options—like Starlink's satellites—because it delivers significantly faster speeds, is more reliable due to its resistance to interference (from weather, foliage, terrain, etc), has higher bandwidth capacity, and offers symmetrical upload and download speeds, making it ideal for activities like telehealth, online learning, streaming, and gaming that require consistent high performance," the group said.
It's ultimately up to individual states to distribute funds to ISPs after getting their allocations from the US government, though the states have to follow rules issued by federal officials. No one knows exactly how much each Internet provider will receive, but a Wall Street Journal report this week said the new rules could help Starlink get nearly half of the available funding.
"Under the BEAD program's original rules, Starlink was expected to get up to $4.1 billion, said people familiar with the matter. With Lutnick's overhaul, Starlink, a unit of Musk's SpaceX, could receive $10 billion to $20 billion, they said," according to the WSJ report.
The end of BEAD's fiber preference would also help cable and fixed wireless providers access grant funding. Lobby groups for those industries have been calling for rule changes to help their members obtain grants.
What it boils down to is fiber is best long term, and is favored as fixed infrastructure once installed, and at that point it is easily upgraded as technology evolves. It's bandwith cannot be equaled by Musk. Its flexibilty cannot. A fiber network, once in place, will not be available if Musk's money-making is favored.
For inaccessible places, fixed fiber may be more costly than justified. National Park hikers or winter cross country skiers would benefit from those remote sights having Starlink emergency access, given falls and avalanches. It has its place. But jiggering the playing field to flow more cash to Musk is fraught with error and conflicting interests, and just bad business. Opinions can differ, analogize it to drone delivery possibility for Amazon. If that were favored over having good roads for vehicle delivery, it would be a mistake. A road network is analogous to a nationwide fiber network, fiber to the door including last mile is an ideal. Starlink is less.
Musk should not be allowed to suck public money from the better technology simply because he spent a lot helping Trump win the election. It's wrong, and stupid to boot.