Sponsors (15)
The bill speeds broadband and wireless deployment and provides applicants clearer, faster permitting rules, but does so largely by narrowing environmental, historic, and local review and by imposing tight deadlines that shift costs and risks onto local governments, tribes, taxpayers, and community input.
Consumers, residents, and businesses nationwide see faster deployment and improved broadband/wireless service because permit deadlines, limits on moratoria, and other streamlining measures speed rollouts of new and upgraded communications facilities.
Applicants and providers gain clearer, more predictable processing: required written denials, explicit incompleteness/tolling rules, fixed timelines (including tribal response windows), and expedited hearings reduce uncertainty and accelerate decisions.
Cable operators and other network owners can modify or eliminate franchise requirements and update technology more quickly, lowering compliance costs and enabling faster service upgrades.
Local, state, and federal environmental, historic-preservation, and aesthetic protections are reduced (NEPA/NHPA streamlining and preemption of certain local RF/aesthetic rules), increasing risk of harm to historic sites, landscapes, and communities' environmental interests.
Indigenous and tribal communities face heightened risk because a short 45‑day tribal response window can let projects proceed without full tribal cultural or historic review, risking damage to sacred or culturally significant sites.
Local planning control and community input are curtailed when missed deadlines trigger automatic approvals or when local aesthetic/regulatory tools are preempted, reducing residents' ability to contest siting or design decisions.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Imposes strict federal timelines and "deemed granted" rules, limits local zoning control over communications siting, and narrows NEPA/NHPA review for many communications projects.
Introduced March 24, 2025 by Buddy Carter · Last progress March 24, 2025
Rewrites federal rules to speed and standardize approval of communications infrastructure. It limits how and when state and local governments can regulate placement, construction, or modification of wireless facilities and cable franchises, creates mandatory decision deadlines with "deemed granted" relief if authorities miss deadlines, narrows NEPA and NHPA review for many communications projects and easements, and requires a federal report on rights‑of‑way fees. The bill sets specific time limits and tolling procedures for local, state, and federal approvals (including a 120‑day limit for cable franchise decisions and strict 30/10 tolling rules for incompleteness notices), allows limited objective engineering and aesthetic rules, prohibits discrimination among providers, and includes judicial‑review paths and a 180‑day reporting requirement on ROW fees charged to broadband projects.