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County asks federal agencies to rethink BEAD grant changes

Roll back rescinds local broadband grants that would connect homes and businesses

PRESS RELEASE
June 17, 2025

Garfield County is asking Rep. Jeff Hurd to engage with federal agencies to halt the restructuring of the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, which aims to connect 99 percent of Colorado households and businesses to reliable broadband services by 2027.

The restructuring of the program, announced June 6, 2025, by the U.S. Department of Commerce and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), entails a shift away from prioritization of fiber-optic infrastructure and eliminates all existing submitted grant applications. Garfield County has already invested $5 million to build a robust, reliable middle-mile network that is connected to local towns and cities.

BEAD has been vital to Garfield County’s goal of connecting unserved and underserved customers in the region. The BEAD program received $42 billion in federal funding for grants, of which the State of Colorado received $826 million for broadband infrastructure.

“It rescinded all of the past grant application process and started over, offering a new round of grant applications and the new scoring criteria is based upon the lowest cost technology provider,” said Diane Kruse, chief executive officer for consultant NEO Connect, to the Board of County Commissioners. “What it essentially is doing is it’s funneling the money to a lower technology, most likely satellite services. Our concern with that is it won’t support the speeds that we’re seeking.

“It may be a low-cost alternative but it’s not a good long-term investment,” she added. “The impact is economic development, education, and medical applications will be severely limited.”

The county’s letter, which was also sent to Sen. Michael Bennet, Sen. John Hickenlooper, Rep. Lauren Boebert, and other state representatives, called the restructuring of the program a “serious setback for rural counties like ours that have spent years working toward equitable, reliable, and future-proof broadband access.”

Garfield County is currently in the third phase of its broadband initiative, which comprises the construction of “last mile” service that would reach roughly 4,000 unserved and underserved county citizens located outside of current service areas.

The first two phases of the project included construction of carrier neutral locations (CNLs) in Glenwood Springs, New Castle, Parachute, Silt, and Rifle, establishing access to large internet hubs in Denver and Salt Lake City. All locations are connected to the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) fiber lines under I-70.

Garfield County is asking that all states be allowed to continue with their initial submitted proposals and award recommendations.

“The State of Colorado, along with many others, has already completed extensive work preparing BEAD implementation strategies,” the county’s letter states. “Our broadband office has diligently developed grant structures, engaged local stakeholders, and launched application processes in accordance with NTIA’s original guidance. ISPs submitted applications with confidence in those frameworks, but now, due to sudden and erratic federal policy shifts, all of that work must be discarded and the process restarted.”

Prior to the restructuring, all of Garfield County’s unserved and underserved homes, institutions, and businesses were set to be connected to robust, reliable gigabit broadband service. The federal government has also lowered the minimum broadband threshold to 100/20 megabits per second (Mbps), which, while meeting the definition of broadband, will not meet future internet data transfer speed needs.

“Beyond performance, this policy change undermines the broader economic goals of BEAD. Access to reliable fiber broadband is central to rural economic development,” the county’s letter reads. “It enables communities like ours to attract new businesses, support remote employment, and retain local talent.”

The board approved the letter to Rep. Hurd unanimously, 3-0.