A reader from Forrest County recently asked the Roy Howard Community Journalism Center’s “What Is True?” fact-checking service if a Trump administration executive order, issued on the president’s first day in office for his second term, would halt federal funding aimed at expanding broadband internet access to rural portions of Mississippi.
On Jan. 20, President Donald Trump signed a flurry of executive orders, including one called “Unleashing American Energy.” This particular order directed federal agencies to pause the disbursement of funds appropriated through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a $1.2 trillion package aimed at modernizing U.S. infrastructure, improving sustainability and boosting economic growth. The act, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden in November 2021, allocated $65 billion for broadband expansion and affordability efforts.
Mississippi’s broadband expansion and federal funding
The act also created the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program, better known as BEAD. The goal of BEAD is to expand high-speed broadband access across the country and particularly to rural, unserved and underserved communities. BEAD was given $42.45 billion to accomplish this goal, and each state, territory and the District of Columbia received a slice of that funding. After state officials submitted a comprehensive plan for expanding access, the Magnolia State was awarded more than $1.2 billion of this funding.
At the time of this award, state leaders were already well on their way to expanding broadband access to hundreds of thousands of Mississippians. In a 2023 interview with the Mississippi Business Journal, Sally Doty, head of the state broadband office, said that funding streams for this effort included about $450 million from the federal Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, about $75 million from the 2020 federal CARES Act, $32 million from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Broadband Infrastructure Program and around $152 million from the federal American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.
In that interview, Doty said the BEAD funding would have a “tremendous impact on Mississippi.” She said her office was working with federal officials on an implementation plan, and, in August 2024, the Biden administration announced that an initial plan proposal had been approved, enabling “Mississippi … to request access to funding and begin implementation.”
Clarifying the order’s impact
After Trump took office and signed the “Unleashing American Energy” order, several news outlets — including StateScoop — reported that broadband expansion was “in limbo.” To clarify matters, the Trump administration issued a memo stating that the funding “pause only applies to funds supporting programs, projects, or activities that may be implicated by the policy established in Section 2 of the order.” Section 2 discusses the administration’s plans to expand domestic energy production, reduce reliance on foreign resources and eliminate regulatory barriers that favor technologies like electric vehicles.
While this executive order does not mention internet expansion efforts and will likely not affect BEAD funds for Mississippi, CNN recently reported that the U.S. Commerce Department, which has oversight of the program, is “revamping” it. The original BEAD framework prioritized fiber-optic networks as the preferred solution for high-speed internet expansion, but the department’s changes, according to CNN, include the adoption of a technology-neutral approach, allowing satellite providers like Elon Musk’s Starlink to compete for federal funding.
According to British daily newspaper The Guardian, Musk, a senior White House adviser, has publicly called for defunding BEAD while also suggesting that Starlink “could provide internet connectivity to rural homes at a fraction of the connectivity cost.”
State broadband office responds
Doty told “What Is True?” that she foresees “no drastic change in Mississippi’s plan for the buildout of broadband infrastructure to the approximately 125,000 households across the state that remain unserved.” She added that her office “had already anticipated that (low-Earth orbit satellite providers Starlink and Amazon’s Project Kuiper) or fixed wireless would be used for our extremely high-cost locations in Mississippi.”
“Alternative technologies are the right answer in certain situations and can provide acceptable speeds, especially as this technology evolves,” Doty said. “Starlink will have a role in our buildout, but (it) is not the answer for all remaining unserved locations in Mississippi.”
She said that she agreed with Musk’s criticism surrounding the program’s “slow rollout.”
“I emphatically agree that the program has been excruciatingly slow,” Doty said. “From my view, many of the federal requirements that states must meet are time-consuming, expensive and unnecessary for an effective program.”
Doty said that she expects the new administration to “streamline the process,” which will allow her office to move “with more urgency.”
Looking ahead
Although the Trump administration’s executive order does not explicitly halt broadband expansion funding, the Commerce Department’s revamp of BEAD introduces uncertainty about its future in Mississippi. While state officials, including Doty, anticipate progress will continue, the implementation process may shift under new federal guidelines.
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