Commerce Secretary to Overhaul BEAD

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told staff that he plans to overhaul the BEAD program to make it technology neutral, with a formal announcement coming soon, possibly as early as this week.

Reporters said that Lutnick’s changes could "drastically" increase the amount of funding that could go to Starlink satellite deployments. According to the report, Starlink is currently estimated to receive around $4.1 billion for LEO satellite BEAD deployments in the U.S., but they say that amount could now be as high as $20 billion.

Beyond satellites, Lutnick also has other plans for BEAD, which will come as no surprise to anyone in the industry. This includes plans to eliminate or reduce some rules and provisions pertaining to environment and climate, workforce diversity, unions, and low-cost broadband. 

Once changes go into effect, states may have to rewrite their BEAD plans, which could cause delays, the report said.

Differences of opinion

Despite the apparent lock step among Trump appointees and other Republicans over the issues previously mentioned, there is not 100% unity within the GOP about alternative technologies or changes to BEAD.

A recent article originally appearing in Bloomberg highlighted some of the differing opinions. Republican Senator Dan Sullivan from Alaska pushed back against Lutnick about using Starlink to cover all of Alaska's deployments, saying it remains less reliable.

And he wasn't the only Republican to push back. “I DO NOT want West Virginia’s three years of hard work to be wasted,” wrote Senator Shelley Moore Capito from West Virginia, as quoted in the aforemetioned article, concerned that more changes will slow down deployments.