Senate Commerce Committee Advances Roth Nomination to NTIA
Her nomination will now go to the full Senate.
Jake Neenan
WASHINGTON, April 9, 2025 – The Senate Commerce Committee advanced Wednesday Arielle Roth’s nomination to head the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
Senators voted 16-12 along party lines in favor of Roth, with all the committee’s Republicans in favor. John Fetterman, the Democratic Senator from Pennsylvania, switched his vote from no to yes by proxy after the fact, with every other Democrat opposing her nomination.
Roth’s nomination will now go to the full Senate.
If confirmed, she will be tasked with overseeing the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program, as well as federal spectrum management. Roth serves as telecom policy director for the Senate Commerce Committee under Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
Roth will "pursue a win-win solution on spectrum that addresses both commercial and national security concerns” and administer BEAD “to the benefit of the American people and not to any single individual or company,” Cruz said.
Like Cruz, Roth has been critical of the BEAD program and its preference for fiber. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said the agency, which houses NTIA, is reviewing the program to take a more “tech neutral” approach.
Democrats take issue with the idea in part because Elon Musk, the billionaire adviser to President Donald Trump, owns the satellite ISP Starlink, which could be in line for more BEAD funds depending on how the rules are changed.
In her confirmation hearing last month, Roth was noncommittal on how significantly she would be looking to change the program. She deflected questions on whether states would have to redo any of their completed work but emphasized she wanted to get deployments done quickly.
At the hearing, “Ms. Roth refused to commit to honor the agreements that NTIA has already made with states and tribes,” said Ranking Member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. “We did not see evidence of that commitment” in written answers submitted later.
More than 40 states have now begun the process of fielding grant applications under the current program rules. Three states received approval from the Biden NTIA on spending plans, but their money has been held up in a review by the agency’s grants manager since Trump took office.
West Virginia, which was supposed to submit its selected projects for approval this month, received a 90-day extension to rework its final plan in light of the Trump administration’s policy preferences. The state’s governor didn’t give details about his meeting with Lutnick on the issue at a recent press conference.
Roth gave birth to her sixth child just after midnight last night, Cruz said. She’s married to Yaakov Roth, who left Jones Day in February to become a high-ranking official at the Justice Department.
