S323-119

What This Bill Does

The reported PLAN for Broadband Act would direct the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), led by the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information, to coordinate broadband programs across 15 named agencies. A national strategy is due within one year of enactment and an implementation plan within 120 days after the strategy. The plan must cover consistent policies, funding maps and applications, performance reporting, fraud controls, permitting, and affordability and adoption programs. It must plan rules against awards to already-served areas or projects already funded or subject to enforceable deployment obligations. For programs that are not technologically neutral, it must determine a consistent per-location infrastructure subsidy ceiling. The reported amendment also requires a strategy proposal for maximum per-location awards that considers high-cost areas, including Tribal areas. No dollar cap or new grant appropriation is set directly by this bill.

Who Benefits and How

Broadband providers and grant applicants may benefit from more consistent applications and permitting coordination. Households without affordable broadband, including people on Tribal lands, are intended to benefit from better-targeted deployment and adoption programs, but the bill does not guarantee new service or lower prices. Existing providers and already-funded projects may face less subsidized duplication, while prospective competing projects in served areas may lose future award opportunities under the planned restrictions. Developers of broadband infrastructure requiring more than $5 million and subject to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) would gain a specific route to FAST-41 covered-project status, subject to its other requirements. This is permitting coordination, not a waiver of NEPA or automatic project approval.

Who Bears the Burden and How

NTIA must inventory Federal, State, and local programs, evaluate costs and technology neutrality, consult covered agencies, publish a draft implementation plan for at least 60 days of comment and reply comment, and carry out the strategy. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Department of Agriculture, Department of the Treasury, and the other covered agencies must participate in coordination and submit funding-map reporting. Federal property and land-management agencies must track communications-use application times, address delay factors, provide annual reports, and alert staff when an application risks exceeding the existing 270-day decision deadline. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) must evaluate coordination and duplicate or served-area awards. These tasks impose administrative and data-quality costs. The Act expressly grants no new authority to regulate broadband service and preserves FCC independence from NTIA direction.

Key Provisions

• Requires a national strategy within one year, an implementation plan within 120 days thereafter, and at least 60 days of public comment and reply comment on the draft plan.
• Directs the plan to include common FCC availability and Deployment Locations Map data, coordinated applications, rules against duplicative awards, and consistent obligation and expenditure reporting.
• Requires a strategy proposal for maximum per-location infrastructure awards with high-cost and Tribal-area consideration, and a plan-level ceiling for programs that are not technologically neutral.
• Requires a congressional briefing within 21 days after the plan and progress briefings at least every 90 days after implementation begins until completion; GAO must commence its study within one year after submission of the plan, not necessarily finish it by then.
• Requires covered-agency reports within 60 days of enactment on funding-map coordination since May 15, 2023, data completeness and timeliness, and unresolved challenges.
• Expands FAST-41 covered-project eligibility to qualifying NEPA-subject broadband infrastructure likely to require more than $5 million, and requires federal-property application tracking and deadline alerts without creating automatic approvals.
• Protects FCC authority and bars construing the Act as new Federal, State, local, or Tribal authority to regulate broadband internet access service.