Landry to Lutnick: Let States Keep Non-Deployment Dollars
He proposed that Commerce limit spending to AI or 'America First' policies like workforce development.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 9, 2025 – Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, is asking the Commerce Department to let states keep federal broadband funds they don’t end up using to secure universal connectivity, provided they spend it on certain things. Among 34 states that have reported tentative results, about $13 billion in allocated funding would be left over for those purposes.
Gov. Jeff Landry's letter to Howard Lutnick
In a Monday letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Landry asked Lutnick to allow non-deployment spending under the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program, provided states use the money to invest in AI or on “America First” policies
“We respectfully request that you continue to hew closely to the statute by directing that remaining BEAD allocations be invested in state-led initiatives, subject to NTIA review,” Landry wrote in his two-page letter, so long as they advance the White House’s plan for promoting AI or “America First Policy Initiatives/Make America Great Again Policies.”
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