Release from United States Senator Bill Cassidy – October 23, 2023
WASHINGTON – United States Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA) today released a statement after the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced that Louisiana has made the most progress of any state toward deploying broadband funding secured in Cassidy’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). Cassidy worked to include $42.45 billion for the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program when negotiating the bill.
“Families in Louisiana are in a better position now than they were two years ago because of our effort to secure broadband funding in the infrastructure law and the state’s quick work to put it to use,” said Dr. Cassidy. “Students, small businesses, and communities across our state will all benefit from this major win.”
Background
Louisiana was awarded $1,355,554,552.94 billion in broadband funding to help provide access to high-speed internet across the state. The funding comes from the BEAD program, which was authorized and appropriated at $42.45 billion in IIJA. Given that Louisiana has approximately 1.3% of the total U.S. population, our state received two and a half times more funding for broadband—punching way above our weight.
Louisiana is the only state so far to reach the final step of the BEAD program application process and is awaiting final approval from NTIA.
