HR2289-119

What This Bill Does

The American Broadband Deployment Act of 2025 is a broad permitting and franchise streamlining bill for wireless, wireline, cable, and broadband infrastructure. It rewrites Communications Act limits on state and local review of personal wireless service facilities and telecommunications service facilities, preserving local zoning authority in general but barring discrimination, service-prohibiting regulations, moratoria, excessive fees, and slow decisions. It sets decision deadlines such as 60, 90, 120, and 150 days depending on the facility and request type, creates cure periods for incomplete applications, and deems certain requests granted if governments miss deadlines. It expands mandatory approval for eligible modifications to existing wireless towers, base stations, support structures, and wireline facilities. For cable, it imposes a 120-day franchise decision deadline, deemed grants for missed decisions, limits on cable-equipment placement rules, 120-day modification of franchise requirements for good cause, continuing franchises unless properly revoked or terminated, fair-market-value sale rules, and limits on blocking franchise transfers. It exempts eligible wireless and communications projects and certain federal easements from NEPA and National Historic Preservation Act treatment, while preserving FCC radiofrequency-exposure review. It also creates a 45-day presumption for tribal review of complete FCC Forms 620 and 621, accelerates federal easements, rights-of-way, and leases with deemed grants, and requires NTIA to report to Congress on broadband deployment fees charged by eligible entities and political subdivisions.

Who Benefits and How

Wireless carriers benefit from shorter zoning shot clocks, limits on moratoria and discriminatory rules, and mandatory approval of eligible facility modifications. Wireline broadband providers benefit because telecommunications facility requests receive similar anti-discrimination, deadline, tolling, and deemed-grant protections. Cable operators benefit from faster franchise grants, easier franchise modifications, continuing franchise terms, fair-market-value protections, and transfer limits on franchising authorities. Broadband infrastructure applicants benefit from NEPA and NHPA exemptions for covered projects and from deemed grants for federal easements, rights-of-way, and leases. Rural and underserved broadband users benefit if faster approvals reduce deployment delays. Congress and NTIA benefit from fee transparency about state and local broadband deployment charges.

Who Bears the Burden and How

State permitting authorities and local zoning boards must decide applications within federal deadlines, provide written incompleteness notices quickly, avoid moratoria, and limit fees to objective cost-based amounts. Cable franchising authorities must process franchise requests, equipment requests, modification requests, terminations, sales, and transfers under tighter federal rules. Federal Communications Commission staff must administer definitions, tribal-form presumptions, radiofrequency review, and communications-project rules. Indian Tribes reviewing FCC Forms 620 and 621 face a 45-day response window before a good-faith-effort presumption applies. Environmental reviewers and historic preservation offices lose NEPA or NHPA review leverage for specified eligible facilities requests and covered projects. Executive agencies managing federal property must process easements, rights-of-way, and leases under deemed-grant deadlines.

Key Provisions

• Amends Communications Act wireless zoning rules to bar discriminatory or service-prohibiting state and local regulation.
• Requires state and local governments to decide personal wireless and telecommunications facility requests within specified 60-, 90-, or 150-day timeframes.
• Prohibits moratoria, constrains application fees, and creates deemed grants when covered requests are not decided on time.
• Expands mandatory approval for eligible modifications to existing wireless towers, base stations, support structures, and wireline facilities.
• Requires cable franchise decisions within 120 days and limits cable-equipment placement, franchise modification, termination, sale, and transfer rules.
• Exempts eligible wireless and communications projects from specified NEPA and National Historic Preservation Act treatment.
• Creates tribal-review presumptions for complete FCC Form 620 and 621 submissions after 45 days.
• Requires executive agencies to process federal easements, rights-of-way, and leases under deadlines with deemed grants.
• Directs NTIA to report to Congress on fees charged for broadband deployment authorizations and rights-of-way.