NIST Review of BEAD Funds Still Ongoing
The agency hasn't yet signed off on three BEAD spending plans under the Biden administration.
DALLAS, March 11, 2025 – An unexpected federal review is still holding up Louisiana’s $1.3 billion in federal broadband funding, one of the state’s broadband officers said Tuesday.
“The review is still ongoing,” said Thomas Tyler, deputy director of the state’s broadband office. He spoke at the Connected America conference in Dallas.
Louisiana, along with Delaware and Nevada, received approval on their spending plans for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program in the waning days of the Biden administration. That approval came from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the Commerce Department agency handling BEAD.
But the National Institute of Standards and Technology also has to sign off on BEAD plans, and it didn’t do so before the transition to the Trump administration on Jan. 20. The agency, whose cybersecurity benchmarks are baked into BEAD requirements, is also acting as the grants manager for the program.
Tyler had previously explained on Feb. 26 that “Everybody came in with the new administration and kind of stopped working to gauge the room and what was going on.” The Trump administration has attempted to freeze federal spending it's ideologically opposed to, something courts have blocked in multiple cases, but has not formally announced a hold on BEAD dollars.
While the pause has left the three states in limbo, Tyler emphasized ISPs that won BEAD grants in Louisiana were ready to start deploying once they get the go-ahead.
“Shovels are ready to hit the dirt,” he said.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced last week the department was “revamping the BEAD program to take a tech-neutral approach,” but states are still waiting for specific guidance on what that will entail.
GOP lawmakers have long taken issue with the program’s preference for fiber. Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., introduced a bill last week that would, in addition to axing a host of provisions including the program’s low-cost plan requirement, make it easier to fund other technologies. Under current rules, states can fund non-fiber projects if fiber would be too costly or no providers are interested in deploying it in a given area.
Regardless, states have been moving ahead. More than 32 have started the process of fielding grant applications under the current framework, with several reporting strong ISP participation.
Trump’s pick to head the NTIA, Arielle Roth, who has also criticized BEAD, has yet to be confirmed.
