Cantwell, Schatz Press NTIA on Nearly $1B in Undistributed Tribal Broadband Grants

WASHINGTON, Nov. 7, 2025 – Senators are demanding an explanation from the Commerce Department for the Trump administration’s decision to freeze nearly $1 billion in broadband grants for tribal nations.

In a letter Thursday to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and National Telecommunications and Information Administration Administrator Arielle Roth, Sens. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, said roughly $980 million in second round Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program funding remained unobligated, despite applications closing in March 2024. 

Another $294 million in grants announced late last year have not been distributed, the senators said, and existing grant recipients have reported concerns that NTIA may impose new requirements or claw back previously awarded funds.

“The TBCP is the first NTIA program to recognize Tribes’ sovereignty to determine broadband infrastructure needs on their own lands,” the senators wrote. “We are concerned that the agency is applying additional, unnecessary standards and requirements, resulting in uncertainty that threatens the success of existing and planned projects.” 

Cantwell and Schatz questioned whether NTIA has begun using new percentile-based cost metrics, such as evaluating tribal projects based on their per-location costs. The senators say any such methodology would lack statutory basis and require prior tribal consultation. 

Concerns reflect unease over NTIA administration of BEAD

Their concern reflects broader unease over how the NTIA is administering another major broadband program, the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment initiative.

Under new policy directives from Lutnick and Roth emphasizing “the lowest” costs possible, what was initially a $42.5 billion federal program, is now set to distribute less than $20 billion of obligated funds. NTIA is reportedly still pressuring states to cut high-cost locations and alter plans in ways that could result in even more reduction in obligated money.

The senators asked about how NTIA’s June 6 notice restructuring BEAD may impact pending tribal projects.

They asked how many locations tied to TBCP applications were later included in state BEAD final proposals and, of those, how many fall within “hard-to-serve” or “high-cost” areas, which providers are now permitted to exclude. 

Relatedly, they asked how NTIA’s likely recision of non-deployment funds under BEAD would impact projects that would have benefited those same tribal locations. Those funds were allocated to support the long-term operation of BEAD networks through workforce training, broadband affordability and device initiatives, digital training and literacy programs, building middle-mile infrastructure, and more.

In a statement to Broadband Breakfast, an NTIA spokesperson said NTIA had received the letter “and will respond in due course.” Cantwell and Schatz requested a staff briefing within two weeks of NTIA’s reply, though the letter does not specify a deadline for when the agency must respond.

The Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program is a nearly $3 billion grant program, part of the Internet for All initiative launched by the Biden administration. The program was funded through $980 million from the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 and $2 billion from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.