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Pritzker urges feds to release $1B in broadband funds to Illinois · Illinois Valley - Shaw Local

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  Speaker 1: Pritzker urges Feds to release one billion dollars in broadband
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  funds to Illinois. Written by Maggie Doherty, This article is
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  being read by an automated voice brought to you by Everlett.
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  Chicago Governor J. B. Pritzker sent a letter to US
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  Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik on Tuesday urging him to approve
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  illinois proposal for federal broadband infrastructure funds. The one billion
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  dollars proposal would connect about three hundred eighty three thousand people,
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  mostly in rural areas, to high speed internet. However, Illinois
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  and California lagged months behind other states in the approval process,
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  leading to speculation that the funds have been withheld from
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  the two blue states for political punishment or leverage. Those
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  funds were previously allocated to states in twenty twenty three
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  under the forty two point five billion dollars Broadband Equity,
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  Access and Deployment Program established by the Biden administrations by
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  partisan infrastructure law passed by Congress in twenty twenty one.
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  To receive funding, states were required to submit a five
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  year plan and proposal identifying under and unserved communities solicit
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  feedback from the public and then file for final approval,
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  But midway through the process, Lutnik announced the Commerce Department
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  would review the program, which he claimed had not connected
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  a single person to the Internet due to woke mandates, favoritism,
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  and burdensome regulations. He vowed to work with states and
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  territories to cut red tape and get households connected quickly
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  at the lowest cost possible. Last June, the National Telecommunications
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  and Information Administration, or NTIA, which oversees the approval of
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  BEAD proposals, released a policy notice outlining restructuring for the
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  program and creating new delays. An audit by the Government
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  Accountability Office later found the move had violated the Congressional
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  Review Act by failing to approve the changes with Congress,
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  but the agency has not since walked back the changes.
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  It gave states until September to comply with the changes
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  and committed to reviewing all final proposals within ninety days
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  of submission, but more than seven months since Illinois submitted
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  its final proposal, the review is still not complete. California
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  is the only other state or territory that still has
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  not received approval. According to NTIA's bad Progress Dashboard, at
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  this point, it seems unusual and targeted that the US
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  Department of Commerce had the capacity to complete in depth
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  reviews and approvals for every single state except for Illinois
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  and California. Pritzker wrote in his letter to Lutnik, Illinois
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  families and businesses in rural areas are the ones paying
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  the price. AI compliance potentially complicating the release of funds
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  is an executive order signed by President Donald Trump last December.
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  The order sought to shield tech companies from state laws
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  regulating artificial intelligence. It targeted state laws, including several in Illinois,
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  that Trump said are inconsistent with national policy on AI.
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  In the order, Trump directed Lutnik to explore whether beeB
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  BUN funding could be withheld from states with onerous AI laws,
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  a move Pritzker's office at the time called reckless and
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  said doesn't protect anyone but the wealthy. An NTIA spokesperson
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  said in a statement that NTIA is continuing to work
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  with Illinois to ensure its final bid plan delivers the
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  benefit of the bargain. The spokesperson did not address questions
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  about the impact of Trump's executive order for AI compliance
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  on the bad fund allocation. Time is money Pritzker implored
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  Lutnik to be guided by his decades of experience working
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  on Wall Street in understanding that time is money for
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  Illinois homes and businesses. Each passing day keeps over three
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  hundred eighty three thousand illinoisans and over one thousand, two
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  hundred schools, libraries, and hospitals disconnected. Pritzker wrote, patients are
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  unable to access critical telemedicine services, Students cannot complete homework online.
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  Farmers are left without the necessary tools to monitor crops.
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  New businesses cannot leverage online platforms, and job seekers lose
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  out on opportunities to support their families. Lutnick's office did
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  not respond to a request for comment by the time
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  of story publication. When asked whether the Attorney General might
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  file a lawsuit challenging the delay, a spokesperson for Pritzker
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  said the state is evaluating all available options to ensure
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  Illinois receives the federal broadband funding necessary to move projects forward.
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  Capital News Illinois is a nonprofit, non partisan news service
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  that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide.
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  It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation. I'm
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  the Robert R. McCormick Foundation m