03.27.25 Thune Letter To Lutnick Re BEAD
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Breitbart News03.27.25 Thune Letter To Lutnick Re BEAD
Uploaded by
Breitbart NewsMarch 27, 2025
The Honorable Howard Lutnick
Secretary of Commerce
U.S. Department of Commerce
1401 Constitution Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20230
Dear Secretary Lutnick:
We write to thank you for committing to a rigorous review of the Broadband Equity, Access, and
Deployment (BEAD) program. As you may be aware, Republican senators have previously
raised concerns with the Biden administration’s National Telecommunications and Information
Administration (NTIA) and its implementation of the BEAD program. Specifically, NTIA
ignored congressional direction and acted inconsistently with its statutory authority in the
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA),1 filling the program with onerous regulations that
prevented the quick, efficient deployment of broadband and resulted in not a single household
being connected to the internet. Therefore, we urge you to remove the Biden-era extraneous
regulations as you review the BEAD program to ensure the responsible and effective use of
taxpayer dollars.
In particular, we encourage you to remove the BEAD program’s restrictive labor requirements
that disadvantage rural communities, provisions favoring government-owned networks over
private investment, and guidelines that prioritize certain technologies over others and clearly
contradict congressional pursuit of tech-neutrality.
Furthermore, despite the IIJA’s explicit prohibition on broadband rate regulation, NTIA
exceeded its statutory authority and attempted to enact rate regulations anyway. The inclusion of
climate change mandates further diverted funds and focus away from the program’s primary
objective of ensuring broadband access for unserved and underserved communities. These
unnecessary bureaucratic barriers slow deployment, increase costs, and ultimately run contrary to
the very purpose of the program and should also be removed. Even the former Director of the
BEAD program recently admitted that many of these woke requirements were “inserted by the
prior administration for messaging/political purposes” and “never central to the mission of the
program.”2
1
Letter from Republican Members of the S. Comm., on Commerce, Science, & Transp. to the Hon. Alan Davidson,
Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information (April 20, 2023).
2
John Hendel, Top Broadband Official Exits Commerce Department with Sharp Musk Warning, POLITICO (Mar. 16,
2025), https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/16/official-exits-commerce-department-musk-warning-00232278.
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Under your leadership, the BEAD program can finally fulfill its long overdue mission and ensure
taxpayer dollars are not spent funding extraneous, burdensome regulations. Eliminating these
obstacles will empower states to work closely with broadband providers and accelerate
deployment, maximize resources, and reach truly unserved and underserved communities
without any more delay caused by unnecessary government interference.
Thank you for your time and attention to this important matter. We appreciate your leadership in
reviewing and addressing these concerns, and we look forward to working with you.
Sincerely,
______________________ ______________________
John Thune Ted Cruz
United States Senator United States Senator
______________________ ______________________
Roger F. Wicker Deb Fischer
United States Senator United States Senator
______________________ ______________________
Jerry Moran Marsha Blackburn
United States Senator United States Senator
______________________ _____________________
Todd Young Ted Budd
United States Senator United States Senator
______________________ _____________________
Eric S. Schmitt John Curtis
United States Senator United States Senator
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______________________ _____________________
Bernie Moreno Tim Sheehy
United States Senator United States Senator
______________________
Cynthia Lummis
United States Senator
