By Steven Allen Adams, The Parkersburg News and Sentinel
CHARLESTON — When U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., fought to include billions in funding in the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure bill for nationwide broadband expansion, she had no idea five years later that zero dollars would be spent. But finally, there is light at the end of the tunnel.
West Virginia is poised, again, to be one of the first handful of states to submit its final proposal for the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) for the federal Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program.
The public comment window for West Virginia’s BEAD proposal closed last week, with the final proposal being sent to the NTIA by Thursday, Sept. 4. That will trigger a 90-day comment period at the federal level before the NTIA can approve or recommend changes to the proposal.
The BEAD Program, established by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) with Capito heavily involved in the negotiations with former president Joe Biden, allocated more than $42 billion to expand high-speed broadband access across the United States.