H.R. 1975: BEAD FEE Act of 2025

This bill limits the nature of fees that states and territories receiving Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program funding may impose on applicants seeking authorization to construct or deploy broadband infrastructure.

(The BEAD Program is administered by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and provides funding to eligible entities for broadband deployment, connectivity, mapping, and adoption projects. Eligible entities include U.S. states, territories, and the District of Columbia.)

Under the bill, BEAD funds may not be provided to an eligible entity if the entity or a political subdivision of the entity charges fees (1) to consider a request to place, construct, or modify broadband infrastructure; or (2) for the use of a right-of-way owned or managed by the entity or a political subdivision, or for the use of infrastructure within such a right-of-way, to place, construct, or modify broadband infrastructure. However, this restriction does not apply to fees that are competitively neutral, technology neutral, nondiscriminatory, publicly disclosed, and based on actual, direct, and objectively reasonable costs. Any such fee must be described to applicants in a manner that distinguishes between (1) recurring and nonrecurring fees, and (2) the use of infrastructure on which there is no existing broadband infrastructure and the use of infrastructure on which there is existing broadband infrastructure as of the date of the application.

Written by the Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress.