Permitting Reform Remains a Top Priority: BEAD Contractors Need to Obtain Over 86,000 Permits

In order to complete all of the construction projects funded by the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity and Access Deployment (BEAD) program, a new study projects that contractors will have to obtain at least 86,402 permits from a wide range of governing bodies. While some permit processes may go smoothly, others are already imposing significant costs and delays. Moreover, the estimate likely understates the scope of the problem, as the authors made several conservative assumptions in producing the report. Permitting reform is already a significant focus of both Congress and the FCC. It needs to remain a top priority as this report documents.

On August 5, 2026, Broadband Expanded issued a study and summary conducted by Alex Karras and Michael Santorelli to quantify the size of the permitting challenge that contractors face across the nation. They find that “BEAD-funded broadband builds face a broad, multi-jurisdictional permitting burden.” Looking at just the basics, the study covers 2,942,440 BEAD-funded locations within 3,783 projects and 126 federal, state, and local jurisdictions. This produced 6,933 project areas (a match between a single project and a specific permitting jurisdiction) and tries to measure the number of permits each will require. In total the study identifies 86,402 permitting “triggers.” The median project area faces 11 triggers and 8 permitting authorities.

 Who requires these permits? The study assumes that every project area will require at least one permit from each of the counties in which it is located. It also reports that 95.2 percent of project areas trigger a federal environmental review. At the state level, 75.5 percent of project areas require state-level permitting (mainly for highway rights-of-way) and 61.7 percent require municipal permits.

The authors made several conservative assumptions. As a result, the actual number of permits is likely to be significantly greater than projected. These assumptions include:

• Each permitting requirement is only counted once in each project area even though in many cases the jurisdiction may require more than one permit to complete the project.
• Due to data limitations the analysis does not include permits for infrastructure that is not physically close to a served household.
• The study omitted all satellite projects on the assumption that they require no physical plant and therefore do not need permits.
• Features crossed only by fiber or other infrastructure running between premises with no construction are not counted.

Other than counties (which are assumed to apply to all projects), the most common triggers for a permit are wetlands (89.4 percent of projects), flood zones (72.6 percent), interstate, U.S. and state highways (71.6 percent), impaired waters (64.6 percent), and municipal overview (61.7 percent).

Because they touch many projects with different responsibilities, some entities have a larger presence than others. The U.S Army Corps of Engineers covers 89.8 percent of project areas, the Environmental Protection Agency 83.2 percent, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency 72.6 percent. Since federal agencies issue 48.2 percent of all permits, permit reforms in these agencies will have an out-sized impact. The problem is not limited to government authorities. Private parties account for 15.7 percent of permits. Railroads account for 44.3 percent of all projects (as opposed to permits issued). Utilities and pipelines are also significant. 

Harras and Santorelli do a good job of summarizing the basic size of the permitting process. They conclude that “ISPs face a thicket of byzantine permitting processes at the local, state, and federal levels that could slow or derail progress towards meeting BEAD’s goals at scale." Given their assumptions, the figures are likely a lower-bound estimate of the true burden.

The problem is further complicated by the fact that each jurisdiction has its own timetables, requirements, and processes. In addition, the BEAD program contains time limits that contractors must meet once they have received government funding. Finally, many jurisdictions lack the resources to handle a sudden surge in construction. On the upside, the BEAD program currently has $21 billion in unspent funds. Free State Foundation scholars have supported using at least some of these funds to improve the permitting processes that currently delay broadband deployment.

FCC to Improve USF Management but Still Congressional Reform Is Needed

The FCC voted last week to strengthen its management of the Universal Service Fund, including improving the FCC’s oversight of the Universal Service Administrative Company. Chairman Brendan Carr called this effort a “top-to-bottom review of all aspects of the USF by looking at how these programs are being administered.”

I welcome the FCC’s ambition here to review the fund that subsidizes telecommunications services across the country. Administrative improvements are commendable and help make for proactive, responsible regulators. But what the USF still really needs is comprehensive reform from Congress to fix deeper issues, something Congress has talked for years about doing.

Reflecting the USF’s deep issues is the out-of-control contribution factor – basically a tax – that funds the USF. Now, interstate and international telecom revenues are being taxed at 38.8% and likely will keep climbing until Congress acts.

The tax rate rose from 9.1% in the second quarter of 2003 to 38.8% in the third quarter of 2026. That’s correct – the USF tax rate more than quadrupled over the 23-year period from the earliest readily available data to the most recent data. And in the last five years alone, the tax rate rose from 31.8% in the third quarter of 2021 to 38.8% in the third quarter of 2026 – a 22% or 7-percentage-point increase.

 

Until Congress enacts major reform, the existing USF regulatory scheme requires the tax rate to keep climbing to sustain its level of funding. This pressure exists because the tax base – traditional interstate and international telecom revenues – that pays into the fund is shrinking as consumers rely more on services other than traditional telecom services to communicate. In September 2025 comments submitted to the Senate USF Working group, the Free State Foundation summarized this issue here.

Additionally, Free State Foundation scholars routinely discussed how the fund’s High Cost program is redundant and outdated. These days, (too many) overlapping federal subsidy programs support broadband deployment. And already deployed capable infrastructure has greatly reduced the number of areas with prohibitively high costs anyway.

A bicameral, bipartisan group of legislators created the Universal Service Fund Working Group in 2023 to reform the fund, largely to address the shrinking tax base. The group relaunched in 2025 after a hiatus and collected public comments in September 2025, including those from the Free State Foundation.

Since then, the working group has hit delays. In the most recent public update, Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC), a member of the group, said the group aimed to introduce draft legislation for major reform in June 2026. And before that, he estimated May 2026, citing “tremendous progress.” But no draft bill has been introduced to date.

The telecommunications marketplace has changed so radically since the creation of the current USF’s regime that top-to-bottom reform is needed without further undue delay. Hopefully, Rep. Hudson’s estimates are close to becoming reality, and we will see legislation unveiled this year to help Americans access telecommunications in a more cost-efficient and cost-effective way that avoids waste and fraud.

Otherwise, the chart above will continue to show a sharp upward trend on the right-hand side.

California PUC Scheduled to Vote on Charter/Cox Transaction: Additional Bites at the "Conditions" Apple Shouldn't Be Allowed to Upset the Pro-Consumer Cart

Next Thursday, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) at long last is poised to vote on the transfer of control of Cox Enterprises, Inc. (Cox) to Charter Communications, Inc. (Charter). And with little time to spare. The question is, will extra-legal attempts to saddle this pro-consumer transaction with unjustified conditions "jeopardize the Transfer's public benefits altogether"?

In comments filed with both the CPUC and the FCC, a June 2025 Perspectives from FSF Scholars, and a series of blog posts, Free State Foundation President Randolph May and I consistently have argued that the proposed combination of Charter and Cox is likely to generate clear consumer-benefitting efficiencies and, as a result of the de minimis overlap of their service territories as well as the impact of intense competition from Big Tech, no significant offsetting harms.

As we concluded in our submission to the FCC:

[T]he combination of Charter and Cox promises numerous consumer benefits. These include [(1)] lower costs, greater choice, and additional innovation in traditional cable offerings (broadband and video) fostered by an enhanced ability to compete with often much larger rivals, including Big Tech platforms with global reach; (2) the expansion of Charter's hybrid [mobile virtual network operator] offering into Cox's footprint combined with lower costs through greater scale; and (3) the "onshoring" of Cox customer-service jobs. And given the lack of any meaningful overlap in service territories, not to mention the high level of third-party competition in all three marketplace sectors, there appears to be little, if any, basis for concern that the transaction could result in significant harms.

*    *    * 

Regarding the state of play in California, the last hurdle that the transaction must clear, let's start with (potentially) good news: as I noted in my June 23 post to the FSF Blog, the parties expressed concern in a June 18 notice of ex parte communication that the CPUC's failure to act by August 13 – that is, the very day upon which the vote is scheduled – could result in the expiration of the Department of Justice's Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) approval. That "would cost the companies $2.5 million in filing fees and require them to wait at least another 30 days for DOJ clearance."

Should a vote to approve proceed as scheduled, those imminent instances of inefficiency and waste would be averted.

And now, let's turn to the (potentially) bad news: as I described in that same blog post, commenters, certainly aware of that looming deadline, had urged the CPUC to impose still more conditions – that is, on top of those agreed to by the parties in comprehensive settlements (Settlements) with the CPUC's Public Advocates Office and the California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF) and described in a May 18 notice of ex parte communication.

(Without getting too far into the weeds, there are two proposals before the CPUC: (1) the Proposed Decision of Administrative Law Judge Ormond (PD), to which Charter and Cox roundly object, and (2) the Alternative Proposed Decision of Commissioner Matthew Baker (APD), which is based upon the Settlements.)

In reply comments, CETF took issue with the PD, contending that "[b]ottom-line, a settlement agreement requires the assent of its parties" (emphasis in original).

Similarly, in their reply comments regarding the PD, Charter and Cox asserted it "deviates from longstanding Commission precedent, resulting in 'clear legal error and technical inconsistency,' by improperly superseding Settlement terms, and imposing extraneous measures with no record support. It would materially impede Charter's ability to compete and jeopardize the Transfer's public benefits altogether" (citations omitted).

By contrast, Charter and Cox noted approvingly in their reply comments on the APD that it "correctly finds that the Transfer, with the Settlements, serves the public interest, and, 'paired with the mitigations' that Joint Applicants accept (subject to modest revisions), also 'address[es] concerns raised by parties outside the [Settlement A]greement[s]'" (emphasis in original).

*    *    *

The Settlements to which Charter and Cox – as well as the CPUC's Public Advocates Office – are a party appear to be more than sufficient to address any potential harms resulting from this transaction. The CPUC therefore should reject calls to unilaterally supersede those agreements and instead approve the APD at its meeting next week.

FCC Simplifies Its Broadband "Nutrition" Labels

On July 22, the Commission adopted a Report and Order modifying its broadband "nutrition" label rules. According to the News Release, these changes "mak[e] [the labels] a more useful tool for consumers and reduc[e] compliance burdens on providers." They also bring those rules into better alignment with their authorizing congressional language.

2021's Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act directed the Commission to "promulgate regulations to require the display of broadband consumer labels, as described in the Public Notice of the Commission issued on April 4, 2016 (DA 16–357), to disclose to consumers information regarding broadband Internet access service plans" (emphasis added).

"GFiber FCC Broadband Label" by Wikimedia Commons user JBoots07 is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

But as I cautioned in a Perspectives from FSF Scholars published prior to the adoption of the original rules in November 2022, various commenters would have the agency ignore such statutory guardrails and instead "overload those labels with extraneous information intended to advance unrelated policy agendas rather than facilitate broadband comparison shopping."

Regrettably, the FCC at that time did not embrace my concerns.

The item adopted on July 22, however, addresses that overreach – and at the same time renders the labels more useful for consumers and less burdensome for ISPs. As the News Release underscores, the "initial broadband label rules … resulted in sometimes-confusing labels that strayed beyond the statutory framework Congress created, increasing compliance costs for providers in the process."

Among other things, the updated rules:

• Allow customer service representatives to communicate information contained in the labels conversationally rather than requiring them to read the labels word for word;

• Ensure "that consumers have … clear, accurate, and concise information about broadband plans, making the labels a more useful shopping tool";

• Eliminate obligations to provide outdated information, such as references to the since-discontinued Affordable Connectivity Program;

• Allow providers to "use links or icons at point-of-sale to avoid unwieldy amounts of information that can overwhelm consumers"; and, most saliently,

• Remove obligations that exceed the underlying statutory mandate.

In his Separate Statement, Chairman Brendan Carr assured that "[n]one of those changes come at the expense of transparency…. The result is a label that's easier for consumers to use, while reducing costs for providers. That's a win for everyone."

NTIA's "Call to Action" on 6G

Last week, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration issued a “Call to Action for 6G Leadership and Security.” So far 24 other countries, including all of our major strategic allies, have already agreed to participate. The timing is great. 6G technology is often portrayed as the Holy Grail of future technology, and there is a growing realization that AI depends on advanced telecommunications networks like 6G.

Policies relating to 6G technology are extremely important and NTIA's "Call to Action" under Administrator Arielle Roth's leadership displays all the right motivations and intentions. However, without the proper policy commitments and implementation, the effort may not be as successful as we would hope it to be.

Veterans of policymaking know that words are less important than intentions, which in turn are less important than resources. What is the depth of Congressional interest in 6G technology? Compromises will be needed there. Is the Administration willing to devote the necessary time and resources to get ahead of issues? Several points strengthen the Administration’s chances. First is the growing interest in both 6G and AI. Second is a better appreciation of both the economic and strategic aspects of next generation computing. The early support of allies is also encouraging. Finally, the 27th World Radiocommunication Conference in Shanghai during the fall of 2027 gives the Administration a hard deadline for making progress.

The "Call to Action" correctly emphasizes the importance of collective action. The U.S. and Europe have had long battles over the taxation of technology firms, data collection and storage, and the Digital Markets Act. To get significant allied agreement, the Administration needs to show a long-term commitment to achieving a united front.

The document also points out the critical role of the private sector. The draft timetable mentions many opportunities to involve private stakeholders in policy negotiations. This will be extremely important provided the negotiators are guided by the public interest. Partnerships with private parties are valuable because they often have more detailed knowledge than government officials and because their active involvement in carrying out any strategy is vital. Any successful advancement on 6G will require significant investment by private companies, which in turn depends on the wisdom of policy and the ability to start and complete projects quickly.

The "Call to Action" promises a “bias toward action.” That should provide the guidance necessary to encourage cooperation by the private sector without curtailing competition between different technologies. It also requires tradeoffs. The "Call to Action" contains an ambitious schedule of action.

All great accomplishments start with little more than an idea and intention. The "Call to Action" focuses on an issue vital to America’s economic and security strength, not to mention its tremendous value to individuals. In the right circumstances, significant progress can sometimes be made in a short period of time. Let’s hope that is the case here.

Yet Another Call to Get Permitting Reform Done

Believers in the need for permitting reform received another boost on July 29 when two prominent voices co-authored a letter in Route Fifty calling for significant improvements in obtaining the government permits needed to start virtually all infrastructure projects. Brandon Tatum, CEO of the National Governors Association, and Jonathan Spalter, CEO of USTelecom, correctly note that maintaining global technology leadership will require significant investments in many fields. However, much of the current debate has centered around projects to extend broadband coverage to all Americans. Although both Congress and the Administration have made important strides in this issue, it is not clear that their efforts will result in lower costs or significantly faster permits.

The authors do a good job of putting the problem in perspective. They correctly point out that:

America is entering a period of extraordinary infrastructure need — driven by artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing and data-intensive technologies. The country will need major expansions in electricity generation, transmission capacity, wireless infrastructure, fiber networks and more, simply to remain competitive, let alone to continue to lead the world and ensure future economic opportunities reach everyone. 

In a previous Perspectives from FSF Scholars, I pointed out the extraordinary demands that AI and related technologies will have on information networks. I also made a powerful argument for permit reform to allow contractors to shorten the time and costs of obtaining government approval to use rights-of-way. This is especially important for broadband projects. With the Administration’s Build America initiative and a $42.45 billion Broadband Equity and Access Deployment (BEAD) program, the pressure to complete projects extending broadband coverage to all Americans is likely to increase. Unjustified permitting costs and delays may well adversely affect the success of these projects. Broadband is part of a larger issue in which bureaucratic conservativism and lack of accountability result in long delays. In some cases, a lack of funds and/or expertise may also be part of the problem. Unfortunately, the cost of these delays is often hidden. Congress and the Administration have taken some positive steps: Senate leaders are discussing a broad bipartisan package for permitting. Most of the focus has been on streamlining the National Environmental Policy Act review process. The House of Representatives has passed reforms including the PERMIT Act and the SPEED Act aiming to set enforceable federal permitting timelines and address judicial review delays. In 2018, the FCC promulgated rules for Small Cells that set maximum time limits for deciding permit requests and restrictions on the fees agencies can charge contractors. It also proposed rules to speed both wireless and wireline deployments. Questions remain whether these good faith efforts will result in meaningful progress in obtaining broadband rights-of-way, let alone permission for other forms of infrastructure. The jury is still out on that. Each effort has been opposed by state and local governments arguing that neither the Communications Act nor the Constitution give Congress or the FCC the power to interfere with their permitting requirements. Although the BEAD program offers state and local governments the promise of broadband expansion, it also imposes a significant demand on local resources. Agencies with tight budgets may face a significant increase in workloads. The BEAD program currently contains $21 billion in unallocated funds. It would make sense to use at least some of that money to help agencies streamline their permitting processes. According to the Route Fifty letter, Massachusetts and West Virginia have implemented significant process improvements that could be extended to other jurisdictions. Most of "Build America’s future lies in its own hands. Subjecting projects to unnecessary costs and unreasonable delays frustrates the public will. As Tatum and Spalter say: “let’s build.”

When Old Versions of "Net Neutrality" May Seem Quaint

It's beginning to look quite possible – although, thankfully, not a certainty at this point – that the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) may hold much more sway over Democratic policy positions after the midterms, or if not then, in a few election cycles. I'm not suggesting that most Democrats will openly identify as DSA party members or even acolytes. But you have to be willing to blink reality – or put your head in the proverbial sand – not to recognize that it's likely that policies advocated by Democrats, as a whole, are moving considerably further to the left on the political spectrum than they are today.

 

This is a consequence of the reality that a majority of self-identified Democrats, in several recent polls, actually favor socialism over capitalism.

 

What might this mean for communications law and policy?

 

Nothing good, if the promotion of competition and consumer choice, investment, and innovation matter.

 

The late Robert McChesney co-founded the leftist advocacy group Free Press and served as the advocacy group's first president. Professor McChesney was an avowed Marxist and long-time editor of the Marxist publication, The Monthly Review.

Below are just a few of Robert McChesney's statements. There are many others to the same effect.

 

“What we want to have in the U.S. and in every society is an Internet that is not private property, but a public utility. We want an Internet where you don’t have to have a password and that you don’t pay a penny to use. It is your right to use the Internet.” [The Bullet, August 9, 2009. The Bullet is a publication of the Socialist Project.]

 

”[W]e have a long way to go. At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies. We are not at that point yet. But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control. [The Bullet, August 9, 2009. The Bullet is a publication of the Socialist Project.]

 

“We need to do whatever we can to limit capitalist propaganda, regulate it, minimize it, and perhaps even eliminate it.” [Interview in with Robert McChesney in the publication Rabble]

 

My purpose here is not to doubt the sincerity of Professor McChensey in espousing his beliefs. Indeed, if I didn't think his beliefs were fiercely held – and that he and his followers at Free Press and elsewhere were committed to implementing them – I wouldn't worry so much.

 

Recall that Free Press, which Mr. McChesney co-founded and led, has been the most vocal advocate for the strictest and most radical forms of "net neutrality" – which, in essence, in its iterations to date, mostly amounted to regulation of Internet providers as public utilities.

 

You don't need to be an expert "reader between the lines" to discern that when the next "net neutrality" campaign gets going at the FCC and elsewhere in government – and it likely will at some point – if the Democratic Socialists of America hold the sway that it now seems possible they may, older versions of "net neutrality" will seem quaint.

 

The ultimate goal surely will be, as Mr. McChesney put it, "to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and divest them from control." And to exert enough control over the media to "to limit capitalist propaganda, regulate it, minimize it, and perhaps even eliminate it."

 

Not scare-mongering. Just a heads-up as the country is becoming more enamored with socialism and the DSA.

 

We Need NHPA Reform to Enable AI

The Free State Foundation has written many times about how difficulty obtaining necessary government permits and rights-of-way adds unwarranted costs and\or delays to deploying broadband. Although most permitting problems are at the state and local levels, the federal government also requires costly studies for permission to use federal property. The two principal statutes are the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). On Tuesday another voice weighed in. “The Permitting Window is Closing,” by Tahra Hoops of The Rebuild urges Democrats to make NHPA reform a priority and negotiate a bipartisan agreement. However, because of the problems associated with future energy supplies, the call for support should be directed to all sides.

NHPA is one of two significant federal statutes that govern activity on federal lands. Although good data on costs and delays does not exist, a paper from earlier this year estimated that, absent reform, the cost of both statutes for just outdoor wireless facilities would be $2.2 billion over the next decade. Overall economic harm would total $7.5 billion. This is equal to 18 percent of the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment program. The study found that: “the current permitting process adds unnecessary costs for wireless infrastructure and service providers and delays the deployment of higher-capacity networks and innovative services in the United States.”

 

 

NHPA requires federal agencies to evaluate the impact of federal undertakings on historic property. Section 106 requires agencies to identify historical properties that may be affected by a proposed undertaking and assess whether the action would affect those properties. Broadband deployments are considered undertakings and therefore require a more detailed study.

Ms. Hoop’s analysis looks at NHPA primarily through its effect on electricity markets. A combination of growing demand and supply constraints has caused energy prices to rise sharply over the last few years. Ms. Hoops points to data from the Energy Information Administration showing that the cost of electricity rose 42 percent over the last five years. On average, households spent $110 more in 2025 than in 2024. This causes a slew of problems. One is that the backlog in rights-of-way approvals prevents a great deal of clean energy from connecting to the electric grid. To make things worse, the reduction in supply causes power plants to ramp up their use of coal and oil.

Second, U.S. policy prioritizes goals that, if pursued, will require tremendous amounts of new electricity. A key aspect of U.S. climate policy is the electrification of everything from vehicles and air conditioning to energy storage. Even if the electricity to power these machines is coal, electrification will still require large increases in supply. Then there is artificial intelligence (AI), which requires incredible amounts of electricity to power data farms and run the information networks needed to connect AI to the rest of the economy. Without a modern sophisticated collection of networks, including connections to the power grid, AI will not amount to much. Under current policy, AI capacity and needs are forecast to rise rapidly, so any policy that makes it easier to build and connect power plants on federal lands helps advance AI.

Permitting reform can be accomplished. Utah’s State Historic Preservation Office digitized decades of paper records into a GIS system in 2017. Today 98 percent of its reviews clear within seven days, saving the state roughly $250,000 per year. The Bipartisan Policy Center recently published a paper on possible permitting reforms for the NHPA. Commonly mentioned changes include tighter time deadlines. reducing the number of properties covered by the Act, limits on judicial review, and digitizing records.

NHPA reform will have lots of benefits. The environmental ones are not always clear but as Ms. Hoops says: “[a] technology-neutral permitting overhaul is a net-clean policy by simple arithmetic. Speeding up everything speeds up clean energy most, because clean energy is what’s waiting in line.”

A reduction in federal permitting time and costs will speed up deployment projects and reduce the cost of spreading broadband to all parts of the country. Finally, shortening the permitting process will reduce the cost and time associated with finding new sources of electricity and connecting them to the grid. That has a tremendous effect on the growth of AI. As stated before, this is one of the key constraints to the buildout of the new information networks needed to convey, compute, and control the massive amounts of data needed to support AI.

Congress is currently considering a number of reform bills including the Historic Preservation Fund Reauthorization Act (H.R 3416). Last session a bipartisan bill passed committee but members were unable to seal the deal. The environmental, power, and scientific benefits remain great. Let’s hope they do this year.