Some officials, lawmakers look to speed up permitting for broadband projects

As state and local governments wrestle with the major investments and planning needed to build out broadband internet, permitting for those projects is emerging as a key issue.

States are desperate to spend the money they have available from the federal government’s $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program, but equally desperate to make sure those projects aren’t bogged down in years of red tape and permitting problems.

Broadband represents a major component of states and localities’ future economies. But getting the projects going is perhaps one of their biggest obstacles.

“Too often, broadband deployment is prevented or delayed because of burdensome, opaque and expensive permitting processes that exist at every level of government — federal, state and local,” Rep. Richard Hudson, a North Carolina Republican who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, said during a recent hearing. “These unnecessary obstacles not only increase costs for deployment, but they also delay progress for communities that have already waited far too long.”

That subcommittee hearing, where lawmakers marked up more than two dozen bills designed to “streamline” broadband permitting, saw a variety of proposed solutions. Some of the biggest issues identified are with the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act, two federal laws that both require projects to receive extensive reviews and approvals from various agencies that can take years. States and localities often have similar review requirements.

In a bid to reduce those review periods, lawmakers have suggested a variety of legal tweaks, including by implementing clear timelines on reviews, also known as “shot clocks,” and capping fees that some deem excessive. They also have argued for exempting certain projects, primarily those on previously disturbed lands, from having to perform what Hudson called “cumbersome and duplicative” reviews, and looked to reduce barriers to deployment on federal lands and increased coordination between federal agencies.

“These unnecessary obstacles not only increase costs for deployment, but they also delay progress for communities that have already waited far too long,” Hudson said. “We need to address these challenges if we hope to close the digital divide once and for all.”

The subcommittee forwarded various bills to address broadband permitting challenges to the full House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Broadband groups said such reform is necessary given some of the horror stories they have witnessed in various states. In September testimony before a previous House subcommittee hearing, Jonathan Spalter, president and CEO of USTelecom — The Broadband Association, said some members have struggled to access federal land to get projects moving or been stymied by lengthy review processes.

And he noted that overlapping state and local reviews can also wreak havoc. In Minnesota, for example, Spalter said a rural broadband project was stopped for more than six months while an applicant waited for a soil testing permit. He also noted that some governments still require paper plans, while Illinois can charge up to $100 per foot to deploy fiber in tunnels, which he called a “big, round, arbitrary number — totally unrelated to the actual work.”

The Federal Communications Commission has also looked to make its mark. In September, commissioners voted to explore ways to “accelerate both wireline and wireless infrastructure builds,” Chair Brendan Carr said in a blog post. Agency officials said after the vote that state and local regulations “inhibit the installation and modernization of wireless networks, resulting in an effective prohibition of 5G wireless services.” Public comment on the FCC’s plans, which are part of its Build America agenda, is now open.

Not everyone shares some federal officials’ enthusiasm for speeding up the permitting process, especially in the state and local arena. Last month, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, National Association of Counties, National League of Cities and National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors said Congress and the FCC are intent on preempting local authority and would prevent governments from holding businesses accountable as they try to build projects.

“These bills represent an unprecedented federal intrusion into established local decision-making processes, favoring large broadband, telecommunications, wireless, and cable companies at the expense of residents and taxpayers,” the groups wrote in a joint letter. “These bills strip local governments of the ability to effectively manage the infrastructure built on local streets and in neighborhoods, while imposing no reciprocal obligations on providers.”

Democrats in Congress are similarly concerned about a potential loss of local control over certain review processes.

“Putting arbitrary deadlines on state, local and Tribal governments to start and finish complicated permit reviews — under threat of an automatic construction approval — is opposed across the board by the local officials who are responsible for doing the work,” Rep. Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat who is the ranking member of House Energy and Commerce, said in his opening statement at last month’s subcommittee hearing. “Other provisions would gut any local communities’ ability to protect historic and culturally significant sites — especially for Tribal communities. All together, these are the kind of ideas that sound like reform only in Washington.”