• The Trump administration has immediately terminated the Biden-era Digital Equity Act, calling it "racist and illegal."
  • The $42.5 billion BEAD broadband program is being reformed to be technology-neutral and stripped of labor and diversity requirements.
  • The moves aim to slash costs and streamline deployment but face opposition from over 140 groups warning of a deepening digital divide.

In a sweeping move that upends federal broadband policy, the Trump administration, with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, has abruptly ended the Digital Equity Act and initiated a major overhaul of the massive Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. The administration frames the action as a necessary correction to what it deems wasteful spending and unconstitutional racial preferences, though critics immediately warned it risks leaving millions of Americans behind.

"We are turning money from Biden into equity for the American people," a senior administration official said, characterizing the previous programs as "woke handouts." The Digital Equity Act, a $2.75 billion set of grants established in the 2021 infrastructure law for digital literacy and device access in underserved communities, was shuttered effective immediately. President Trump called the act "racist and illegal" and has directed Secretary Lutnick to discontinue all its funding, a move the administration claims will save taxpayers billions.

The parallel reforms to the $42.5 billion BEAD program are equally significant. The administration is stripping away mandates that favored specific broadband technologies, moving to a tech-neutral approach. It is also eliminating labor and employment requirements tied to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), reducing them to a mandate for compliance with existing law only. Furthermore, environmental review processes are being streamlined in an effort to drastically accelerate the pace of deployment.

The overarching goal, according to officials familiar with the planning, is to deliver nationwide broadband connectivity "at a fraction of the cost of the original program." By removing what they see as regulatory overhead and prescriptive rules, the administration believes it can attract greater private sector investment and get infrastructure built faster and more cheaply.

However, the policy shift has ignited a firestorm of opposition from digital rights advocates, local governments, and community organizations. More than 140 groups have already urged Secretary Lutnick to reinstate the Digital Equity Act, citing Census data that shows 31 million American households still lack adequate digital access. They argue that eliminating funding for digital skills training and device access, while focusing solely on infrastructure, will fail to address the full scope of the digital divide, particularly for low-income, rural, and minority communities.

The Commerce Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the specific timeline for implementing the BEAD reforms or how existing grant applications will be handled. State broadband offices are now scrambling to understand the new rules of engagement for what remains the largest-ever federal investment in broadband infrastructure.