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Congressional Daily Record
This section focuses on legislation moving through Congress. It mentions committees such as Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, members such as John Thune.
Issued
April 30, 2026
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Download official Senate Record PDFReturn to issue contextBy Mr. THUNE (for himself, Mr. Lujan, and Mr. Barrasso):
S. 4448. A bill to require the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information to create tools for tracking the progress of grant recipients under the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program, to require the Assistant Secretary to help
processing communications use applications, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.
S. 4448
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the “Accelerating Broadband
Permits Act of 2026”.
SEC. 2. TRACKING BEAD PROGRESS AND PERMITS.
(a) Progress Dashboard.—Section 60102(j) of the
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (47 U.S.C. 1702(j)) is
amended by adding at the end the following:
“(5) Progress dashboard.—The Assistant Secretary shall
make available on a public website a dashboard that tracks
the progress of each eligible entity through major milestones
under the Program, including—
“(A) the amount of grant funds received under this section
that the eligible entity has expended; and
“(B) the number of locations at which broadband service
has been made available using grant funds received by the
eligible entity under this section, and the number of those
locations at which broadband service has been utilized.”.
(b) Tracking Permits.—Section 60102(h) of the
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (47 U.S.C. 1702(h)) is
amended—
(1) by redesignating paragraph (6) as paragraph (7); and
(2) by inserting after paragraph (5) the following:
“(6) Tracking permits.—The Assistant Secretary shall
create a tool to help each eligible entity—
“(A) identify the relevant Federal permit requirements for
each subgrantee of the eligible entity; and
“(B) monitor the progress of each subgrantee of the
eligible entity toward obtaining Federal permits.”.
SEC. 3. TRACKING AND IMPROVING PROCESSING TIMES FOR
COMMUNICATIONS USE APPLICATIONS.
Section 6409(b)(3) of the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job
Creation Act of 2012 (47 U.S.C. 1455(b)(3)) is amended by
adding at the end the following:
“(E) Tracking and improving processing times.—
“(i) Data controls.—Not later than 90 days after the date
of enactment of the Accelerating Broadband Permits Act of
2026, the Assistant Secretary shall develop controls to
ensure that data is sufficiently accurate and complete for an
executive agency to track the processing time for each
application described in subparagraph (A) received by the
executive agency.
“(ii) Requirement to analyze, address, and report on delay
factors.—With respect to the factors that contribute to
delays in processing applications described in subparagraph
(A), the Assistant Secretary shall—
“(I) analyze the factors as the delays are occurring;
“(II) take actions to address the factors; and
“(III) provide an annual report on the factors to—
“(aa) the Committee on Commerce, Science, and
Transportation of the Senate;
“(bb) the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources of the
Senate;
“(cc) the Committee on Energy and Commerce of the House of
Representatives; and
“(dd) the Committee on Natural Resources of the House of
Representatives.
“(iii) Method for alerting staff to at-risk
applications.—Not later than 90 days after the date of
enactment of the Accelerating Broadband Permits Act of 2026,
the Assistant Secretary shall establish a method to alert
employees of an executive agency to any application described
in subparagraph (A) with respect to which the executive
agency is at risk of failing to meet the 270-day deadline
under that subparagraph.”.
SEC. 4. MINIMUM BROADBAND PROJECT COST.
Section 41001(6)(A) of the FAST Act (42 U.S.C. 4370m(6)(A))
is amended—
(1) in clause (iii), by striking “or” at the end;
(2) by redesignating clause (iv) as clause (v); and
(3) by inserting after clause (iii) the following:
“(iv)(I) is subject to NEPA;
“(II) involves the construction of infrastructure for
broadband; and
“(III) is likely to require a total investment of more
than $5,000,000; or”.