Sen. Murray: Canceling Digital Equity Grants Illegal
NTIA webpages related to the programs were down Wednesday.
Jake Neenan
WASHINGTON, May 14, 2025 – The Democratic Senator who spearheaded the Digital Equity Act of 2021 called the Trump administration’s cancellation of grants under the law illegal.
“Needless to say, the president cannot overrule a law. Period,” Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said at a Zoom press conference Wednesday. “And certainly not through a tweet.”
Last week, the Commerce Department canceled grants awarded under the law, telling awardees that President Donald Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick had deemed its programs unconstitutional. The cancellations followed a social media post from Trump calling the law’s programs “racist and illegal.”
The law allocated $2.75 billion to address barriers to broadband adoption that persist after infrastructure is deployed, like expensive devices or a lack of experience navigating online services. It specified certain “covered populations” at whom funded programs could be targeted, including rural Americans, the elderly, people with disabilities, and racial and ethnic minorities.
The last category is what the Trump administration took issue with, telling grantees it amounted to "impermissible and unconstitutional racial preferences.”
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the Commerce agency handling the programs, had awarded more than $500 million in awards to state governments and recommended $619 million in awards to nonprofits and other entities.
All 50 states submitted digital equity plans to the Commerce Department last year in order to be eligible for funding under the law.
Asked what next steps were for lawmakers on Capitol Hill, Murray suggested the Trump administration would be responsive to pressure from GOP lawmakers.
“All this will take is for Republicans to join us and speak up for their states,” Murray said.
There hasn’t been widespread opposition to or criticism of the Digital Equity Act from Republicans, with the exception of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who first raised the argument that it was unconstitutional last fall. He posted last week that he was “glad that President Trump and his team will finally be putting an end to this impermissible discrimination.”
If the money continues being held up, Murray said she was “sure” that someone would sue the government to release the grants, something states are contemplating.
“That’s one way to do this,” she said. “But a whole lot cheaper and easier if Republicans just join us and tell the president to send out the grants.”
The NTIA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the agency’s webpages that previously contained information on the digital equity programs were no longer accessible. At least some were archived and accessible via the Wayback Machine.
Effect in Washington
Aaron Wheeler, head of Washington’s broadband office, said at the press conference that losing the state’s $15.9 million in digital equity funding would “severely hinder our efforts to close the digital divide.”
Wheeler said the state had recently committed to funding a statewide effort to educate people on how to avoid online scams with some of its now-canceled digital equity dollars.
“The program would have provided the tools they need to avoid these scams,” he said. “The long-term costs of security breaches, cyber theft, and lost public trust will outweigh any short-term budget savings.”
