Lawsuit Over BEAD Non-Deployment Funds 'Inevitable,' Says CCG's Dawson

A lawsuit against NTIA regarding use of the BEAD program's non-deployment funding "might be inevitable," wrote CCG Consulting President Doug Dawson in a blog post Friday. "It's hard not to imagine a coalition of State Attorneys General from red and blue states together suing NTIA" to get those funds, he said, citing Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry's (R) letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick emphasizing that how non-deployment funding is spent is up to the states.

This "might be the biggest fight yet" over BEAD, Dawson said, adding that it's "now pretty clear that NTIA plans not to expend the non-deployment funds and take credit for saving the expenditure for the U.S. Treasury." The agency said it saved more than $13 billion in funding after most states submitted their revised plans.