BREAKING: Trump Administration Rescinds Awards, Updates BEAD
Notice of Funding Opportunity rescinds Biden administration approvals of plans by Louisiana, Delaware and Nevada
WASHINGTON, June 6, 2025 – The National Telecommunications and Information Administration released Friday its new policies for the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program.
The agency rescinded its approval of final spending plans from Louisiana, Delaware, and Nevada, which it greenlit under the Biden administration. The new guidance said they, as well as the other states and territories, would have to rescind all preliminary awards and conduct an additional bidding round open to applicants using any technology.
NTIA said fiber projects would no longer inherently get priority, and each applicant could seek to prove it could meet speed, latency, and scalability requirements outlined in the Infrastructure Act to be deemed a priority project.
Those applications would then be compared on the basis of cost.
The agency also declined to adopt a national high-cost threshold, but said it “hereby reserves the right to reject” and project or specific connection “for which costs to deploy are excessive,” as decided by the agency.
States will have 90 days to submit new final proposals, and the agency said it would approve those within another 90 days.
Editor's Note: This is a developing story, and will be updated.
Jake Neenan
