I
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION H. R. 1870
To amend the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to improve the
Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
MARCH5, 2025
Mr. H
UDSON(for himself, Mr. ALLEN, Mr. LATTA, Mr. BILIRAKIS, Mr. CAR-
TERof Georgia, Mr. DUNNof Florida, Mr. JOYCEof Pennsylvania, Mr.
F
ULCHER, Mr. PFLUGER, Mrs. CAMMACK, Mr. OBERNOLTE, Mrs.
H
OUCHIN, Mr. FRY, Mr. GOLDMANof Texas, and Mr. CRENSHAW) intro-
duced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy
and Commerce
A BILL
To amend the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to
improve the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment
Program, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Streamlining Program 4
Efficiency and Expanding Deployment for BEAD Act’’ or 5
the ‘‘SPEED for BEAD Act’’. 6
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SEC. 2. GRANTS FOR BROADBAND DEPLOYMENT. 1
(a) E
LIGIBLECOMMUNITYANCHORINSTITUTION.— 2
Section 60102(a)(1)(E) of the Infrastructure Investment 3
and Jobs Act (47 U.S.C. 1702(a)(1)(E)) is amended— 4
(1) by striking ‘‘The term’’ and inserting the 5
following: 6
‘‘(i) I
N GENERAL.—The term’’; and 7
(2) by adding at the end the following: 8
‘‘(ii) G
IGABIT-LEVEL BROADBAND 9
SERVICE.—In this subparagraph, the term 10
‘gigabit-level broadband service’ means re-11
liable broadband service offered with 12
download speeds of not less than 1,000 13
megabits per second.’’. 14
(b) P
ROGRAMNAME.—Section 60102 of the Infra-15
structure Investment and Jobs Act (47 U.S.C. 1702) is 16
amended— 17
(1) in subsection (a)(2)(J), by striking ‘‘Eq-18
uity’’ and inserting ‘‘Expansion’’; and 19
(2) in subsection (b)— 20
(A) in the subsection heading, by striking 21
‘‘E
QUITY’’ and inserting ‘‘EXPANSION’’; and 22
(B) in paragraph (1), by striking ‘‘Equity’’ 23
and inserting ‘‘Expansion’’. 24
(c) F
UNDSUSAGE.— 25
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(1) FAILURE TO USE FULL ALLOCATION .—Sec-1
tion 60102(c)(5)(C)(ii) of the Infrastructure Invest-2
ment and Jobs Act (47 U.S.C. 1702(c)(5)(C)(ii)) is 3
amended by striking ‘‘deadline, the Assistant Sec-4
retary’’ and all that follows through the end and in-5
serting ‘‘deadline, the Assistant Secretary shall 6
transfer the unused amounts to the general fund of 7
the Treasury.’’. 8
(2) U
SE OF FUNDS.—Section 60102(f) of the 9
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (47 U.S.C. 10
1702(f)) is amended— 11
(A) in paragraph (4)(B), by striking the 12
semicolon and inserting ‘‘; and’’; and 13
(B) by striking paragraphs (5) and (6) and 14
inserting the following: 15
‘‘(5) telecommunications workforce development 16
programs.’’. 17
(d) P
ROJECTSIZEREFORM.—Section 60102(g)(2) of 18
the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (47 U.S.C. 19
1702(g)(2)) is amended— 20
(1) in subparagraph (B), by striking ‘‘and’’ at 21
the end; 22
(2) in subparagraph (C), by striking the period 23
and inserting ‘‘; and’’; and 24
(3) by adding at the end the following: 25
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‘‘(D) if the eligible entity awards a 1
subgrant on the basis of a project area defined 2
by the eligible entity, incorporate a mecha-3
nism— 4
‘‘(i) for a prospective subgrantee to 5
remove from such project area a location 6
that the prospective subgrantee determines 7
would unreasonably increase costs or is 8
otherwise necessary to remove; and 9
‘‘(ii) to award a subgrant for any lo-10
cation removed pursuant to clause (i).’’. 11
(e) P
ROHIBITION ON CERTAINCONDITIONS.—Sec-12
tion 60102(g) of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs 13
Act (47 U.S.C. 1702(g)) is amended by adding at the end 14
the following: 15
‘‘(4) P
ROHIBITION ON CERTAIN CONDITIONS .— 16
Neither the Assistant Secretary nor an eligible entity 17
may establish or enforce, with respect to a process 18
of bidding, a grant, or a subgrant under this section, 19
a condition or other requirement, including a report-20
ing requirement or bid scoring component or pref-21
erence, of such process of bidding, grant, or 22
subgrant (without regard to whether such condition 23
or other requirement was approved as part of the 24
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initial proposal, or any other portion of the applica-1
tion process, of such eligible entity) that relates to— 2
‘‘(A) prevailing wages or compliance with 3
subchapter IV of chapter 31 of title 40, United 4
States Code; 5
‘‘(B) project labor agreements; 6
‘‘(C) union workforces; 7
‘‘(D) collective bargaining; 8
‘‘(E) local hiring; 9
‘‘(F) commitment to union neutrality; 10
‘‘(G) labor peace agreements; 11
‘‘(H) workforce composition or reporting of 12
workforce composition; 13
‘‘(I) climate change; 14
‘‘(J) regulation of network management 15
practices, including data caps; 16
‘‘(K) open access; 17
‘‘(L) a letter of credit from a subgrantee 18
that— 19
‘‘(i) has commercially deployed or op-20
erated a broadband network using tech-21
nologies that are the same or similar to the 22
technologies relevant to such process of 23
bidding, grant, or subgrant; and 24
‘‘(ii) is seeking— 25
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‘‘(I) funding in an amount that is 1
less than 25 percent of the annual 2
revenues of the subgrantee, including 3
any entity that controls, is controlled 4
by, or that is under common control 5
with such subgrantee; or 6
‘‘(II) to provide service to a num-7
ber of locations that is less than 25 8
percent of the total number of loca-9
tions served by the subgrantee, includ-10
ing any entity that controls, is con-11
trolled by, or that is under common 12
control with such subgrantee; or 13
‘‘(M) diversity, equity, and inclusion.’’. 14
(f) A
LLTECHNOLOGIES ELIGIBLE.—Section 15
60102(g) of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act 16
(47 U.S.C. 1702(g)), as amended by the preceding sub-17
sections of this section, is further amended by adding at 18
the end the following: 19
‘‘(5) A
LL TECHNOLOGIES ELIGIBLE .—An eligi-20
ble entity, in awarding subgrants for the deployment 21
of a broadband network using grant funds received 22
under this section, shall treat as satisfying the defi-23
nition of the term ‘reliable broadband service’ any 24
broadband service that meets the performance cri-25
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teria established under subsection (a)(2)(L) without 1
regard to the type of technology by which such serv-2
ice is provided.’’. 3
(g) N
OREGULATION OFRATESPERMITTED.—Sec-4
tion 60102(h)(5)(D) of the Infrastructure Investment and 5
Jobs Act (47 U.S.C. 1702(h)(5)(D)) is amended to read 6
as follows: 7
‘‘(D) N
O REGULATION OF RATES PER -8
MITTED.— 9
‘‘(i) R
ULE OF CONSTRUCTION .—Noth-10
ing in this title may be construed to au-11
thorize the Assistant Secretary, the Na-12
tional Telecommunications and Informa-13
tion Administration, or an eligible entity to 14
regulate, set, or otherwise mandate the 15
rates charged for broadband service or the 16
methodologies used to calculate such rates, 17
for consumers generally or for any subset 18
of consumers, including through the cap-19
ping or freezing of such rates, the encour-20
agement of another entity to regulate such 21
rates, or the use of rates as part of an ap-22
plication scoring process. 23
‘‘(ii) P
ROHIBITION.—An eligible entity 24
may not regulate, set, or otherwise man-25
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date pursuant to this section the rates 1
charged for broadband service or the meth-2
odologies used to calculate such rates, in-3
cluding through the capping or freezing of 4
such rates, the encouragement of another 5
entity to regulate such rates, or the use of 6
rates as part of an application scoring 7
process, without regard to whether the reg-8
ulation, setting, or mandating— 9
‘‘(I) was approved, prior to the 10
date of the enactment of this clause, 11
as part of the initial proposal, or any 12
other portion of the application proc-13
ess, of such entity; or 14
‘‘(II) is carried out in conjunc-15
tion with the requirement to offer a 16
low-cost broadband service option 17
under paragraph (4)(B).’’. 18
Æ
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