The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, established by Congress in 2021, set aside an unprecedented $42.45 billion to expand high-speed internet access nationwide. As states finalize their broadband plans, many are discovering an unusual situation: extra money on the table. Florida and several other states now face the high-class challenge of determining how best to manage a significant broadband funding surplus.
Why is there so much leftover?
The core reason is timing. Initial BEAD allocations, set in mid-2023, were based on then-current estimates of households lacking adequate internet connectivity. Since then, broadband access has expanded rapidly through a mix of private investments and earlier government initiatives.
While the program’s application reviews were underway, traditional and wireless Internet Service Providers (ISPs) continued to pour record quantities of capital into building out new networks. In 2023 alone, U.S. broadband providers invested $94.7 billion in communications network expansion, the second-highest annual capital outlay in more than two decades and roughly 23% above the historic average. The wave of capex connected neighborhoods previously designated as “unserved” or “underserved” thanks to private buildouts that never touched BEAD dollars.
At the same time, states drew heavily on other federal and state grant programs aimed at extending service into remote communities that were otherwise unprofitable for ISPs to bring online. For instance, the American Rescue Plan’s Capital Projects Fund (CPF) set aside $10 billion for broadband and related infrastructure, and states are using about $8 billion of that for broadband deployments expected to reach more than two million locations. The USDA’s ReConnect program and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Rural Digital Opportunity Fund together financed more than $25 billion toward buildouts in the same high-cost areas BEAD was expected to reach.
As those dollars went to work, the pool of locations still eligible for BEAD support shrank. An analysis by the Advanced Communications Law and Policy Institute estimates that the total number of BEAD-eligible locations has fallen by 65% since 2023.
For some states, these metrics are even higher. In South Carolina, continued ISP investment and earlier rounds of public funding drove an 84% decline in BEAD-eligible locations. In a letter to Senator Ted Cruz (TX-R), Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar noted that more than two-thirds of the original BEAD-eligible locations had been connected by other means since June 2023. Florida is experiencing much of the same pattern. As of this fall, Florida’s draft final proposal awards just $291 million of the initial $1.16 billion planned allotment to internet connectivity, leaving most of the state’s allocation untouched.
Most prominently, changes to program rules have driven costs down. On June 6, 2025, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) directed states to choose the combination of projects that delivers the lowest overall cost while still meeting performance requirements. The new guidance removed the program’s earlier “fiber-first” preference, which steered states toward expensive fiber builds even in sparsely populated, hard-to-reach terrains where fixed wireless or low-Earth-orbit satellites could have met BEAD’s speed and latency standards at a fraction of the cost.
The new rules also required states to revisit any project whose cost per location sits above federal thresholds. If costs exceeded the newly imposed price caps, NTIA instructed states to cut proposed allocations. With cheaper technology-neutral connectivity options back on the table, states such as Montana, Ohio, and Alabama each scaled back their proposed infrastructure allocations by tens of millions of dollars.
By late 2025, those forces added up to a striking amount of slack in the national BEAD budget. A recent estimate indicates that, on average, states plan to use less than half of their BEAD allocations for broadband deployment, leaving as much as $21.6 billion in federal broadband funds in limbo.
That surplus is now at the center of the policy fight.
On one side, fiscal conservatives and taxpayer advocacy groups argue that money not needed for deployment should be returned to the U.S. Treasury. The Taxpayers Protection Alliance and Citizens Against Government Waste have argued that the BEAD surplus should not fund a “wish list” of non-deployment-related expenditures, however worthwhile, as they stray beyond BEAD’s broadband infrastructure focus. Former FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly has urged that the surplus “should inure to the American taxpayer,” while some in the Trump administration have floated using the money to pay down the nation’s ballooning deficit.
Opposing voices, including state broadband offices and several Republican officials, want to keep the surplus in state hands. Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry has urged Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to allow states to redirect leftover funds to non-deployment projects that advance national priorities such as the White House AI Action Plan. Senators from West Virginia and Mississippi have echoed Landry’s comments, insisting that states should be able to repurpose leftover allotments for broadband-related initiatives rather than disappear back into the federal budget.
However, it appears that the legal landscape is far more nuanced than either camp’s rhetoric suggests. Under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), BEAD funds are awarded to the states, which must first run an infrastructure program to connect unserved and underserved locations. Any money left after deployment can be used for “non-deployment” purposes related to expanding broadband access, including connecting community anchor institutions like schools and libraries or digital literacy programs. Only after both deployment and non-deployment stages are complete does current law even begin to contemplate reallocating truly unused funds. Even then, Drew Garner, director of policy engagement at the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society, explains that “Any of these states that are saving money, according to the current law, would simply just be giving that money to other states.” Garner continues that treating it as federal savings would require either ignoring the statute or persuading Congress to rewrite it.
As the government returns from its shutdown, Florida and other states will finally get clarity on how leftover funding is to be apportioned. While Congress could theoretically intervene to claw back funds, most near-term direction will likely come through NTIA’s forthcoming administrative guidance. In the meantime, we should take time to appreciate the unusual luxury of this conversation. For a sector accustomed to fighting over shortfalls, debating over how to best utilize excess resources is a refreshing change of pace for federal infrastructure projects.
