{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://clyburn.house.gov/clyburn-leger-fernandez-klobuchar-lujan-lead-effort-to-press-commerce-secretary-lutnick-to-reverse-harmful-broadband-policy/", "Clyburn, Leger Fern\u00e1ndez, Klobuchar, Luj\u00e1n Lead Effort to\u00a0Press\u00a0Commerce\u00a0Secretary Lutnick\u00a0to Reverse Harmful Broadband Policy", "2025-06-25", "2025", "2025-06", "Democrat", "House", "SC", "James E. Clyburn", "C000537", "clyburn.house.gov", "clyburn", "https://clyburn.house.gov/press-releases/", "scraper", "Text of Letter (PDF)\n\nWASHINGTON, DC \u2013 Congressman James E. Clyburn (SC-06), Congresswoman Teresa Leger Fern\u00e1ndez (NM-03), Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), and Senator Ben Ray Luj\u00e1n (D-N.M.) led a group of congressional Democrats in writing a letter to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick addressing the Trump Administration\u2019s recently announced Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Restructuring Policy Notice. The BEAD program was established by Congress in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to provide high-quality, affordable, and sustainable broadband to connect the nearly 25 million Americans that continue to wait for high-speed internet access.\n\nIn their letter to Secretary Lutnick, the lawmakers urge the Department of Commerce to ensure that states receive the full funding and flexibility they retained prior to the issuance of the restructuring notice to fully meet those statutory objectives.\n\n\u201cAccess to affordable, reliable, high-speed broadband is essential to full participation in modern life in the United States\u201d the Members wrote. \u201cWe therefore urge you to implement the BEAD program in accordance with the best reading of the statute so we can make high-quality internet accessible and affordable for all Americans.\u201d\n\nThe BEAD program, enacted into law in 2021 as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, provides $42 billion to provide high-quality internet access to millions of Americans who remain unserved, to ensure affordability, and to facilitate adoption. The bipartisan process that crafted the program was informed by the Accessible, Affordable Internet for All Act, comprehensive broadband legislation formulated by the House Democratic Rural Broadband Task Force in conjunction with the Energy and Commerce Committee and Senate Democrats.\n\nThe letter was also signed by Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Chris Coons (D-DE), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Angus King (I-ME), Ed Markey (D-MA), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Gary Peters (D-MI), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Tina Smith (D-MN), and Raphael Warnock (D-GA) as well as Representatives Leger Fern\u00e1ndez (D-NM-03), Bishop (D-GA-02), Bynum (D-OR-05), Carson (D-IN-07), Carter (D-LA-02), Cleaver (D-MO-05), Davis (D-IL-07), DelBene (D-WA-01), Evans (D-PA-03), Fields (D-LA-06), Figures (D-AL-02), Garcia (D-TX-29), Goodlander (D-NH-02), Hoyle (D-OR-04), Huffman (D-CA-02), Lofgren (D-CA-18), McGovern (D-MA-02), Menendez (D-NJ-08), Mrvan (D-IN-01), Neguse (D-CO-02), Pappas (D-NH-01), Scholten (D-MI-03), Sewell (D-AL-07), Soto (D-FL-09), Thompson (D-MS-02), Titus (D-NV-01), Tlaib (D-MI-12), Tokuda (D-HI-02), Williams (D-GA-05), and Wilson (D-FL-24).\n\nThe full text of the letter is available here and below:\n\nDear Secretary Lutnick:\n\nWe write to express our opposition to the Department of Commerce\u2019s recently announced BEAD Restructuring Policy Notice. The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program was established by Congress in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to provide high-quality, affordable, and sustainable broadband to connect the nearly 25 million Americans that continue to wait for high-speed internet access. We urge you to ensure that states receive the full funding and flexibility they retained prior to the issuance of the restructuring notice to fully meet these statutory objectives.\n\nThe broadband division of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law begins with this congressional finding: \u201cAccess to affordable, reliable, high-speed broadband is essential to full participation in modern life in the United States.\u201d This fundamental reality is why the BEAD program was established to fulfill the subsequent finding that \u201cthe benefits of broadband should be broadly enjoyed by all.\u201d To achieve this goal, the statute states that funding recipients must \u201censure coverage of broadband service to all unserved locations\u201d before using any funds for other purposes. The restructuring notice appears to violate this requirement by allowing applicants to exclude certain unserved locations. Such an allowance would defy bipartisan congressional intent, which was predicated on the understanding that public investment was needed to achieve universal service precisely because building the infrastructure to cover many rural areas was too costly to be profitable.\n\nIn addition to excluding unserved, predominantly rural locations, the restructuring notice would likely result in others receiving worse service. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law requires that \u201cpriority broadband projects\u201d funded by the program be \u201cdesigned to provide broadband service that meets speed, latency, reliability, consistency in quality of service, and related criteria as the Assistant Secretary shall determine; and [to] ensure that the network[s] built by the project[s] can easily scale speeds over time to meet the evolving connectivity needs of households and businesses, and support the deployment of 5G, successor wireless technologies, and other advanced services.\u201d Of currently available technologies, fiber-optic networks are faster and more reliable and can scale speeds much more easily. We made the decision to invest larger sums now in broadband infrastructure that would be resilient and capable of meeting Americans\u2019 growing digital demands for decades.\n\nThe restructuring notice also undermines the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law\u2019s provisions designed to ensure that broadband service is affordable and put to good use. The new rules remove specific requirements that ensured that participating providers would provide a low-cost internet option for low-income customers as required by the statute. Additionally, while the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law specifically allows funds to be spent on \u201cbroadband adoption, including programs to provide affordable internet-capable devices,\u201d the notice rescinds approval of previously approved \u201cnon-deployment activities\u201d and puts all funding for these activities on hold. For example, this provision of the notice puts on hold a South Carolina plan to use BEAD program funds for virtual primary health\u2014equipping low-income households in rural health deserts with access to the full suite of virtual health services at no cost to the patients. If the broadband infrastructure being built by BEAD program funds isn\u2019t put to good use, much of the investment will have been wasted.\n\nAs reflected in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law\u2019s congressional findings, high-quality internet access is a requirement to fully participate in the world, and the BEAD program is our once-in-a century opportunity to finish closing the digital divide. We fear this opportunity would be squandered by the restructuring notice and its changes to coverage, quality, and affordability. We therefore urge you to implement the BEAD program in accordance with the best reading of the statute so we can make high-quality internet accessible and affordable for all Americans.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-07T01:08:28Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://clyburn.house.gov/clyburn-leger-fernandez-klobuchar-lujan-lead-effort-to-press-commerce-secretary-lutnick-to-reverse-harmful-broadband-policy/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7369162049144506, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}