from the more-corruption dept

Thu, Sep 17th 2026 01:03pm - Karl Bode

As the federal U.S. government has given up on consumer protection and corporate oversight, states have filled the void with various degrees of success. That’s been particularly apparent in areas like telecom, where the corruption-fueled death of federal privacy and net neutrality protections have been replicated in a handful of states like California, which passed their own state-level laws.

Now California’s being told by the Trump administration that it can’t enforce any of its own consumer protection laws if it wants to receive $1.4 billion dollars Congress already earmarked for broadband expansion under the 2021 infrastructure bill.

I’ve explored at length (at several different outlets) how $42.5 billion was supposed to be headed to the states to address broadband improvements. Instead, the Trump administration has hijacked the program, driven billions of dollars of those funds to Elon Musk for inferior satellite service (he’d already planned to deploy without subsidy), and stripped the program of any requirement that these taxpayer funds be dispersed equitably or with an eye on affordability.

You know, because cheap, ultra-fast, fiber optic cable that challenges Comcast is woke.

The $42.5 billion in Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) money states were supposed to get for broadband upgrades was already effectively cut in half after the Trump administration engaged in Elon Musk favoritism. That meant a lot of money previously slated for cheap, future-proof fiber was instead redirected to Musk’s increasingly congested Starlink network.

Now states are being told they won’t get any money at all if they engage in policy choices big telecom giants don’t like, including enforcing net neutrality.

Stanford Law professor Barbara van Schewick explains the specifics:

“In July, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the federal agency that distributes BEAD money, approved California’s BEAD deployment plan. On August 31, it issued the award: $1.42 billion to connect about 270,000 homes and businesses.

Buried in the award’s terms and conditions is a clause known as Condition 50. By signing the award, California would agree not to enforce its affordability, net neutrality, and public-safety protections against any internet service provider (ISP) that receives BEAD money.”

Nearly 70% of California’s share of BEAD money will be headed to Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, Amazon, and SpaceX. This is a state, I’ll remind you, where Verizon was caught trying to upsell firefighters to more expensive wireless plans while they were fighting the Mendocino Complex Fire.

All five would be shielded from consumer protection enforcement for the next fourteen years unless the California CPUC rejects the Trump NTIA guidance (which could risk the state getting any money at all), or challenges the Condition 50 restrictions in court:

“If California wins, it gets the full $1.42 billion without the condition, and can connect the 270,000 households without giving up its power to protect all Californians.

But timing is everything: California has to challenge the condition before it accepts the award.”

The CPUC was slated to vote to confirm its final BEAD funding agreement Thursday, September 17 (so it may have already happened by the time you read this). It’s unclear if California Governor Gavin Newsom will have the backbone for this sort of fight.

Having gutted federal consumer protection and corporate oversight, telecoms like AT&T have been working hard to kill off any state oversight of telecom monopoly business practices. That’s included multiple lawsuits against the CPUC (falsely claiming they have no authority to do anything), having AT&T-friendly Dem lawmakers push new laws gutting what authority the CPUC does have, and working with Brendan Carr to pretend that FCC apathy trumps state good intentions.

As always, this is all being framed by telecoms (and the various think tanks paid to parrot them) as some sort of noble protection of “free market competition.” In reality it’s just ordinary corruption. Corruption that’s already hollowed out federal corporate oversight, and is now taking aim at states’ autonomy.

The telecoms and Trump administration are operating on shaky legal ground here (for whatever that’s worth anymore). Courts have previously ruled that the federal government can’t abdicate its authority over broadband consumer protection, then tell states what to do. The infrastructure bill also specifically states that $42.5 billion must be used for broadband access in fairly specific ways.

There’s also growing, bipartisan anger as the public, press, and lawmakers realize that the Trump administration has hijacked this program, driven billions to Elon Musk, and instituted all manner of annoying new delays. All this despite the fact Republicans spent much of last election season demonizing the BEAD program and insisting they alone could fix it.

Filed Under: bead, broadband, california, cpuc, elon musk, fiber, high speed internet, infrastructure bill, net neutrality, telecom, woke
Companies: amazon, at&t, comcast, spacex, verizon