Sponsors (2)
The bill aims to accelerate and clarify federal support for broadband deployment—providing funding, permitting support, and coordination to expand access—while risking that competitive, capacity-driven approaches and open-ended funding will favor better-resourced areas, impose burdens on small local governments, and reduce budgetary oversight.
Millions in underserved residents (rural and low-income communities) would gain improved broadband access through federal grants, incentives, and coordinated deployment efforts, increasing access to telehealth, remote work, and education.
State and local governments would get funding, training, and technical assistance to speed permitting and modernize workflows, reducing approval delays for broadband projects and helping communities deploy networks faster.
Creates a timed federal advisory council and formal industry–government forum to identify practical solutions and coordinated recommendations to overcome deployment barriers on an accelerated schedule.
Competitive grants and prioritization of jurisdictions that are 'ready to deploy' risk concentrating funding in better-resourced areas and leaving the most underserved rural and low-income communities without needed support.
Small and lower-capacity local governments may face matching-fund requirements, administrative burdens, and short-term costs to change ordinances and qualify for grants, straining limited budgets and staff.
The law authorizes scalable, open-ended funding without specified caps or fiscal-year detail, which could increase federal spending and reduce congressional control and transparency over expenditures.
Based on analysis of 6 sections of legislative text.
Creates a grant program and advisory council to help local governments and tribes speed permitting and adopt fee and review practices that accelerate broadband deployment.
Introduced April 21, 2025 by Elizabeth Pannill Fletcher · Last progress April 21, 2025
Creates a competitive grant program and an advisory council to help local governments and Indian Tribes speed up and manage zoning, permitting, and other local processes that affect broadband and wireless deployment. Grants fund capacity-building (staffing, training) and technology to process applications faster and implement streamlined review and fee practices; an advisory council will develop solutions and deliver a report within a year. Sets program rules for eligibility and application requirements, requires covered entities to adopt efficient review procedures and certain fee practices to qualify, and authorizes unspecified appropriations to the Department of Commerce official who runs the program.