Latest to Urge Lutnick on BEAD: Sen. Ossoff, Gov. Evers, Fiber Provider CEO

WASHINGTON, May 15, 2025 – A Democratic senator, Democratic governor, and another fiber provider in Louisiana are the latest to ask the Commerce Department to move forward with a $42.45 billion broadband expansion program.

Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D), and Keith Quarles, CEO of A2D, each sent a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick this week urging him not to delay or drastically change the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program. They join a stream of ISPs, state and federal lawmakers, and broadband offices that have recently urged the same, warning a lengthier delay could be, and in some cases already has been, costly.

“This program, passed by Congress with strong bipartisan majorities, is unlike any comparable Federal effort since rural electrification in the 1930s,” Ossoff wrote Monday. “Your suspension of the program is needlessly hindering progress.”

In March, the Trump administration effectively put BEAD on hold at the federal level while it decides how to alter program rules. Trump and GOP leadership have been opposed to the program’s preference for fiber, citing its relatively higher cost to deploy. 

States are now expecting updated guidance from Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration in June or July. It’s not clear whether that guidance will require the more than 40 states that have already started or finished the application process to redo their bidding. 

There’s been speculation the agency will institute a nationwide per-location cost cap, above which states would be forced not to fund fiber for a given area. That could benefit top Trump donor and advisor Elon Musk, who controls  the satellite ISP Starlink, but Amazon’s Kuiper service has been competing for BEAD dollars. The company won $14.5 million in Nevada and applied for funding across Tennessee. Louisiana, the only other state to have reported winners and funded satellite, hasn't said publicly yet if it went with Starlink or Kuiper, both of which were qualified to bid in the state.

Nevada and the two other states who made awards and received federal approval under the Biden administration – Louisiana and Delaware – have been in a budget review since Trump took office.

Ossoff requested that Lutnick “respond within fourteen days confirming you have lifted your suspension of the BEAD program. Thank you for your service to the Nation.”

NTIA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

For his part, Evers, the Wisconsin governor, urged Commerce to retain a level of state autonomy. State broadband offices are running the program within guardrails set by the NTIA.

“Any changes to the BEAD program should be options, not mandates, and any waivers granted by NTIA should be available to every State,” he wrote Tuesday. “New mandates to drastically alter our state’s BEAD plan will likely slow down our progress, harming the households and businesses that are still awaiting connection.”

Wisconsin’s first round of BEAD bidding closed in February. Evers noted the state received applications for 95 percent of its 200,000 eligible locations. The second round closes May 29. 

Quarles, the A2D CEO, said the delay in states that had already got their awards approved was causing financial strain, a concern ISPs and contractors have already been raising. A2D, a fiber wholesaler based in Georgia, won a $6.8 million grant to serve 4,700 homes and businesses in Louisiana.

“This pause in BEAD funding isn’t just an inconvenience – it’s destabilizing the foundation of everything we’ve planned. Costs are climbing. Supply chains are shifting. Contractors are moving to other states,” he wrote last week in an open letter. “The longer this pause drags on, the more difficult it becomes to honor the pricing and build assumptions we submitted. We’re watching the economics of our bid erode in real time.”