Broadband expansion on hold as feds miss self-imposed deadline

The delay comes after the Trump administration changed the rules for the program, forcing states to adjust on the fly.

Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to account and drives positive change in Pennsylvania.

By CHARLOTTE KEITH
Spotlight PA

HARRISBURG — Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand broadband access in Pennsylvania is still on hold, after federal officials failed to meet their self-imposed early December deadline to review the commonwealth’s plan for spending the money.

Without federal approval, Pennsylvania cannot finalize agreements with the companies that expect to receive the money, and they cannot begin construction.

The cause of the delay is unclear. A spokesperson for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the federal agency responsible for approving the plan, declined to comment on the delay.

Pennsylvania submitted its plan on Sep. 4. The federal government promised to review state plans within 90 days. But more than 120 days later, the commonwealth is still waiting.

In a speech in December, NTIA administrator Arielle Roth said the agency was “working around the clock to approve as many states as possible by year’s end.”

The grant program, created in 2021 as part of a massive bipartisan infrastructure package, aims to ensure that everyone in the U.S. has access to high-speed internet. It’s the largest-ever U.S. investment in broadband.

After President Donald Trump took office, his administration issued a sweeping rewrite of the program’s rules and gave states a tight, 90-day deadline to redo the application process.

The changes focused, in part, on lowering costs, which made satellite internet providers more competitive with those offering connections via fiber-optic cable.

Pennsylvania’s submitted plan would connect roughly two-thirds of eligible locations to the internet with fiber, while another 18% would be served by satellite providers and 13% would receive wireless internet.

In addition to the shift toward satellite and wireless internet, fewer locations are eligible — both because of the rule changes and because more broadband has been built since the infrastructure law first passed.

As a result, Pennsylvania will be able to connect all the eligible locations in the commonwealth for only $790.7 million, rather than spending its full $1.1 billion allocation as originally planned.

NTIA has warned that it could reject specific grant awards if it deems the cost “excessive,” and some reports indicate it has begun asking states to quickly rebid awards for those areas.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has criticized the program’s rollout under President Joe Biden, saying last year it had become bogged down in red tape and “woke mandates.”

He told a U.S. Senate committee that his department would “get the money out the door in calendar year 2025.”

At a public meeting in July, one state official explained that “the last few weeks have been a sprint” as the state broadband authority worked to redo applications under the new rules.

“Sprint is a kind way to describe it,” former budget secretary Uri Monson, the authority’s board chair at the time, responded.

The federal government, in turn, promised to approve states’ spending plans within 90 days of submission. For the most part, that timeline has held.

As of Jan. 7, federal officials had signed off on 42 of the 53 spending plans submitted by states and territories, according to a public dashboard.

Pennsylvania was one of 10 states still waiting for approval, the data shows.