BEAD Director Evan Feinman Resigns, Provides His Clear-Eyed Assessment of the Current Situation on His Way Out the Door

Also provides valuable information about what citizens can do about it

By Denise Rivette

Former BEAD Director Evan Feinman (screenshot from Linkedin)

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), signed into law in November 2021, provided $550 billion in federal funding . The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program and the Digital Equity Act (DE) program were funded through IIJA; both programs will be administered by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).

Montana has been awarded $628,973,798.59 million [sic] through the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program.

The ConnectMT Program was codified in Senate Bill 297 and House Bill 632 in Montana’s 67th legislative session by Governor Gianforte to award grants to internet service providers (ISPs) to improve broadband access across the state. In 2021, the Montana Legislature dedicated $270 million from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to the first round of grants.

~Montana Official State website

Evan Feinman, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) BEAD Director, left his post on Friday. According to their official website, “The $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program aims to connect 25 million Americans currently without high-speed Internet access.” Sunday, Feinman’s exit email to his colleagues made the rounds on newsfeeds and social media. It is presented in its entirety below:

Dear Colleagues,

As you may have heard, Friday was my last day leading the BEAD program. I am disappointed not to be able to see this project through, but I remain deeply proud of the work we got done together and the team at NTIA that I leave behind to see the job through. I don’t know what my next chapter will be, and I’m going to take some time to consider that.

The new administration has a set of ideas about where they want to go, but they are still learning about how these programs work and what the law says. As a result, they, and the staff at NTIA, are still working with the new Secretary’s team on how getting “the benefit of the bargain” will actually happen. While there are versions of what has been proposed that are benign, there is also significant risk that the changes being proposed will be ill-considered and create deeply negative outcomes.

Bottom Line

The new administration seems to want to make changes that ignore the clear direction laid out by Congress, reduce the number of American homes and businesses that get fiber connections, and increase the number that get satellite connections. The degree of that shift remains unknown, but regardless of size, it will be a disservice to rural and small-town America. Stranding all or part of rural America with worse internet so that we can make the world’s richest man even richer is yet another in a long line of betrayals by Washington.

What You Can Do

People who care about the future of rural America, and their representatives, need to speak up while these things can still be changed, and the worst version of these changes could be avoided. They should fix BEAD by removing the requirements that have nothing to do with building infrastructure, NOT change it to benefit technology that delivers slower speeds at higher costs to the household paying the bill. This isn’t what people in rural America want. It’s not what Congressional Republicans or Democrats want. It’s not what the states want. It’s not what the telecom industry wants. There is still time to help the administration make the right call here. Reach out to your congressional delegation and reach out to the Trump Administration and tell them to strip out the needless requirements, but not to strip away from the states the flexibility to get the best connections for their people.

Things That Will Definitely Happen

1. Removing the “woke” requirements from the program. This will include all provisions related to labor and wage, climate resiliency, middle class affordability, etc. I do not regard the inclusion or removal of these provisions as significant, they were inserted by the prior administration for messaging/political purposes, and were never central to the mission of the program, nor were they significant in the actual conduct of the program.

2. A “pause” that isn’t a pause. The administration wants to make changes, but doesn’t want to be seen slowing things down. They can’t have both. States will have to be advised that they should either slow down or stop doing subgrantee selection.

3. Some kind of limit on spending, per location. This could be fine. There weren’t any cases of a state planning to spend hundreds of thousands to connect one location anyway. However, if it’s heavy handed or imposed in a manner that ignores the needs of rural communities, it could be very bad - more on that below.

4. Changes to the treatment of fiber and satellite. Generally, even though the law pretty clearly requires that fiber builds be the program’s “priority projects,” the administration wants to increase the usage of low-earth satellites and diminish the usage of fiber.

5. The NTIA team will try to persuade the administration to embrace the best version of their chosen direction, and the BEAD team, especially the program officers out in the states - will do everything they can to support the states in conducting the program and dealing with changes.

Likely Impact of These Changes

1. Delays in getting broadband to the people. Some states are on the 1 yard line. A bunch are on the 5 yard line. More will be getting there every week. These more-sweeping changes will only cause delays. The administration could fix the problems with the program via waiver and avoid slowdowns. Shovels could already be in the ground in three states, and they could be in the ground in half the country by the summer without the proposed changes to project selection.

2. More people will get Starlink/Kulper, and fewer people will get fiber connection. This could be dramatic, or it could be measured, depending on where the admin sets the threshold limit, and whether states are permitted to award projects above the new threshold on the basis of value per dollar, or if they’re forced to take the cheapest proposal, even if it provides poorer service.

3. The three states with approved Final Proposals remain in limbo. They are currently held in NIST review regarding their proposed FPFRs (the budgets accompanying their approved final proposals). This makes no sense - these states are ready to go, and they got the job done on time, on budget, and have plans that achieve universal coverage. If the administration cares about getting shovels in the ground, states with approved Final Proposals should move forward, ASAP.

4. West Virginia (and soon additional states) who have completed their work, but don’t have approved Final Proposals also remain in limbo. They have a final proposal ready to go that gets exceptional service to all West Virginia homes and businesses. Like three states with approved Final Proposals, only the current administration stands between them and getting shovels in the ground. If the administration cares about getting things done, they should allow any state that comes forward with a Final Proposal under the old rules in the next couple of months move forward with that plan.

5. No decision has been made about how much of the existing progress the 30 states who are already performing subgrantee selection should be allowed to keep. The administration simply cannot say whether the time, taxpayer funds, and private capital that were spent on those processes will be wasted and how much states will have to re-do.

6. The wireless industry will be, effectively, shut out of the BEAD program. There will be few, if any, locations that are above any new cost limit that will be able to be more cheaply served by fixed wireless than low earth satellites.

I hope that the many advocates for rural America that exist in governors’ offices, Congress, the telecom industry, and among the people are able to step up and make sure the BEAD program gets the changes it needs, and not the ones it doesn’t.

It has been a pleasure working with all of you.

Sincerely,

Evan Feinman

The State of Montana was awarded $629 million under the BEAD program and is currently awaiting NTIA approval on its Initial Proposal Volume 2 in order to begin the subgrantee application process. Through initial benchmarking DOA estimates 65,167 locations may receive access to high-speed, reliable internet under the BEAD program

The State of Montana has been awarded $6.9 million under the State Digital Equity Capacity Program. The DOA submitted its application to the NTIA on May 28, 2024 and is currently awaiting NTIA approval.

The phone number for the main Congressional switchboard in Washington D.C. is (202) 224-3121. Let your senators and representatives know how you feel.