On his first day in office, President Trump ceremoniously signed several executive orders (EOs) in an event that was widely televised and streamed. Among those EOs was “Unleashing American Energy.” Section 7 of that order, titled “Terminating the Green New Deal,” orders all government agencies to “immediately pause the disbursement of funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (Public Law 117-169) or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Public Law 117-58) …” The Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program is part of the IIJA.
While legal and political mouthpieces debate an executive order’s impact on a law passed by the U.S. Congress, the Office of Management and Budget issued a memorandum on January 21 that clarifies the Unleashing American Energy EO—narrowing the scope of the activities that it affects. The memo was authored by Matthew J. Vaeth, acting direct of the OMB, and Kevin Hassett, assistant to the president for economic policy and director of the National Economic Council.
In the January 21 memo, addressed to the heads of governmental departments and agencies, Vaeth and Hassett state the ordered pause in funding disbursement “only applies to funds supporting programs, projects, or activities that may be implicated by the policy established in Section 2 of the order. This interpretation is consistent with Section 7's heading ('Terminating the Green New Deal') and its reference to the 'law and the policy outlined in section 2 of th[e] order.'
"For the purposes of implementing section 7 of the order, funds supporting the 'Green New Deal' refer to any appropriations for objectives that contravene the policies established in section 2."
The language within the IIJA that created BEAD falls outside the language that establishes programs supporting the Green New Deal. As such, the disbursement of BEAD funds is not affected by the Unleashing American Energy executive order.
You can read the executive order Unleashing American Energy here, and the January 21 memo to department and agency heads here.
We will continue to follow activities of the Trump Administration and their potential impacts on the telecommunications, ICT, and data center industries.
