In this episode of the podcast, Chris speaks with Jade Piros de Carvalho about the cascading impact of the federal government’s decision to cancel the Digital Equity Act.
They discuss how this sudden move threatens not just digital inclusion programs, but the very foundation of state broadband offices—and by extension, the success of the $42.5 billion BEAD infrastructure program.
With broadband office funding models built on a delicate web of interconnected federal grants, Jade explains why pulling one thread puts everything at risk.
This show is 24 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed.
Transcript below.
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Thanks to Arne Huseby for the music. The song is Warm Duck Shuffle and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license
Christopher Mitchell (00:11):
Welcome to another episode of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. I'm Christopher Mitchell at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance I'm in St. Paul, Minnesota. It is unseasonably warm, but it's going to get better. I have to say that this is becoming a habit. Now [00:00:30] we have kind of a rapid breaking news. We're doing another rapid fire interview, and I'm excited to bring Jade Piros de Carvalho back. Jade, welcome back to the show.
Jade Piros de Carvalho (00:41):
Thanks for having me. And hotter is better, Chris.
Christopher Mitchell (00:44):
No, it is absolutely not. I reject that we can debate many things, but I'm not willing to debate that and unfortunately, I'm running out of states to move north to. So we are going to talk about the [00:01:00] Digital Equity Act. You and I were chatting briefly, and you have a great insight into this. You are currently the Vice President of Broadband Advocacy and Partnerships at Bonfire, but you had been at the Kansas Broadband Office and you have a deep knowledge of how states are funding their broadband offices, and this pullback of the Digital Equity Act has a significant impact on that. So we're going to talk about that today.
Jade Piros de Carvalho (01:28):
Yes, correct. I mean, [00:01:30] let's face it. There are people in the digital inclusion space that are far more knowledgeable about the impacts of eliminating this program than I am, but I just wanted to highlight one thing that people aren't talking about, and that is the impact that pulling this program will have on every other program, including the infrastructure ones. So do you want me to just dive in on that?
Christopher Mitchell (01:52):
No, no. I wanted to first say that if we only had people on that knew what they were talking about, I would not be on as many shows as I have been.
Jade Piros de Carvalho (02:00):
[00:02:00] Yeah, I'm like the Temu expert, but I was thinking with all the tariffs, that probably makes me more valuable than the actual experts.
Christopher Mitchell (02:07):
That is entirely possible. So for people who aren't familiar with the TikTok of what happened on Thursday morning, I believe it was, yeah, Thursday morning, President Trump announced that he was canceling the Digital Equity Act, and he said that it was racist in a social media post. We did a podcast [00:02:30] that evening I did with Amy Huffman and Angela Siefer from NDIA, in which we talked about everything that we knew the fact that this was not normal order and it was concerning, but that we did not see any actual movement from the bureaucracy to stop the Digital Equity Act on Friday evening. The National Telecommunications Information Administration, NTIA, whose administrator I believe has not been confirmed yet and is on maternal leave, they nonetheless sent out [00:03:00] letters to everyone that had participated in the Digital Equity Act informing them that the project had been canceled. And I believe this went further than we expected because we expected them to cancel the competitive awards from what President Trump said, but we didn't know what they were going to do with the State Capacity Awards. The big difference being, I'm almost done, the big difference being the competitive awards money was still in Washington DC and banks and the capacity awards had been given to the states already, and [00:03:30] the states were using that for some things and also doing their award programs. And so does that bring us more or less to current Jade?
Jade Piros de Carvalho (03:38):
Yeah, I think it's interesting. A couple of things. You mentioned that, first off, those letters went out at 6:00 PM on Friday, and there was no executive order accompanying this. It was all just that social media post and then boom, it's gone. So yeah, the letter actually even alluded to the planning grants being stopped, which those planning grants are long done. [00:04:00] So yeah, they're saying it's all scrapped.
Christopher Mitchell (04:02):
So we are now in a situation in which I would expect there would be probably multiple lawsuits that will be filed, and the courts will slowly untangle this. And my immediate thought went to the organizations that are out there doing important work, helping people. There's a lot of people that are covered. In fact, we found that, I think it's like, I don't know, I forget the number exactly, but Sean is writing a story about Maine and how nearly everyone [00:04:30] in Maine is a part of a covered population,
Jade Piros de Carvalho (04:32):
78% in Kansas, it's usually around 80 plus percent in each state. I mean, it really covers darn near everyone, right?
Christopher Mitchell (04:39):
And so I immediately, my thoughts go to, we have veterans who went and learned special skills to go and defend the country, and they had a promise that they would be taken care of When they came back. Congress enacted a law to make sure that veterans, for instance, would be able to get devices and training to be able to take advantage of telehealth, for instance, [00:05:00] because many veterans live in rural areas, and so they're members of multiple groups, and now the Trump administration is just abandoning them. But that is not our discussion today. That's where my mind went to first. You pointed out that this actually goes far beyond DEA because of how many states are funding their broadband offices, which are responsible for so much more than the Digital Equity Act.
Jade Piros de Carvalho (05:23):
Correct. I mean, you're in Minnesota, you all have had a broadband office for ages, but you're one of the outliers. And during [00:05:30] the pandemic, a lot of these broadband officers were spun up rather quickly, and they weren't designed necessarily with state funding in mind. What they did was design them in a way that would gather together or combine all these different federal funding sources that came out of the pandemic to fund the different staffing positions needed. So I think there's this and that included, I mean, going back, we had capital projects funds [00:06:00] and state local fiscal recovery funds for broadband that offices were using digital equity planning funds, digital equity capacity grants, and then you had the BEAD funds, and if you have other programs like middle mill grants. So what states did was combine all of those to start building up this infrastructure to then be able to execute on all of these once in a lifetime opportunities.
(06:22):
And so there's this belief that if you sweep away the Digital Equity Act, you're getting rid of the DE [00:06:30] person in each office. But what's less understood is that a lot of these staff members are maybe 10% funded by digital equity, 60% funded by BEAD and on and on and on. So you're not just impacting that one role. You might be impacting the GIS specialist who's 15% funded because he's overlaying digital equity indices on top of availability data for a better picture, or the compliance officer [00:07:00] who has to do all the reporting on digital equity. It's a lot more interwoven than people understand. So it's so closely woven that if you start to pull one thread, you really risk unraveling the entire office. Not to be dramatic, but this could put the deployment programs at risk, the actual infrastructure programs at risk. And I don't think a lot of people are appreciating that. And the way that these were designed in states [00:07:30] that are a hundred percent federally funded. And it's also worth noting that many states, Kansas, for instance, have part-time legislatures. I mean, most of them do. Right.
Christopher Mitchell (07:39):
That's what I was going to ask you about because there's a part of me that's like, it's a person or two, it's maybe tens of thousands, a hundred thousand dollars, the state could easily move money around, right?
Jade Piros de Carvalho (07:54):
Well mean if we had legislatures in session, if there was the political will to [00:08:00] do so. But a lot of these states are past the budgeting process, and there's really no way to go to the state and say, Hey, we need you to fill this gap.
Christopher Mitchell (08:12):
If a tornado hit Kansas, it would be a sufficient issue that they would convene a special session.
Jade Piros de Carvalho (08:19):
A special session, yeah. They're not going to do that over this one program because
Christopher Mitchell (08:24):
Be reckless for them to do that.
Jade Piros de Carvalho (08:26):
Well, and they probably don't fully understand the impact [00:08:30] to the other programs. If you have a billion dollar bid allocation that you don't realize, that might be at risk because 20% of five staff members are tied up in this grant, so you can shift funds a little bit. We're almost done with arpa. I mean, some states are done with their ARPA program, so that's not going to be available. It's just there's limited ability to react quickly [00:09:00] to something that's alarming. I just don't think people are appreciating how it impacts everything else.
Christopher Mitchell (09:06):
Okay. Remind us what the states were doing with the capacity grants.
Jade Piros de Carvalho (09:12):
Yeah, so a couple things. I mean, obviously it was funding staffing positions, but it was also funding anything that they put in their digital equity five-year plan. So a lot of them had competitive grant programs for mobile digital equity initiatives, digital literacy skills training, [00:09:30] device distribution programs. They might have public Wi-Fi as part of their digital equity plan. I mean, you have 56 different plans. So I mean, are all of those programs equally valuable and wonderful? I mean, maybe not, but this is what happens when you just take a broad stroke instead of a more precise instrument to programming. You're going to get rid of a lot of against stuff. I mean, if you look at some of these, they're [00:10:00] very workforce development driven. You were talking about that earlier. And even just in the list of the competitive grants, you can see that so many of these are about building up the workforce with the skills needed for every job, but even the networks that need to be built on the BEAD side. These programs were designed to be interconnected for a reason, and one does impact the other, the success of one impacts the success of the other.
Christopher Mitchell (10:28):
When I talked with [00:10:30] Amy Huffman, I asked her if it felt like a real gut punch, and I have to assume you have relationships with a bunch of different state offices. What are you hearing from them as they're digesting this news?
Jade Piros de Carvalho (10:42):
Well, I think there's a lot of fear out there. They don't know what's happening with their jobs, so that's a terrifying thought. And I think that's why we're not hearing more from the state broadband offices and from others in the digital inclusion community. They're just fearful [00:11:00] of losing their jobs. They don't know what this means for their employment, but also what this means for the communities that they have built trust in. And that doesn't come easily. And now you're pulling that rug out from under them. I think Valerie from New Jersey made just the best statement about this when this happened, is that promises made always these promises made, and they're not kept to these communities that have been underserved for too long. And it's like when ACP [00:11:30] went away, and we as advocates of that program, had spent so much time building it up and convincing people it was something good and that they should use it just for it to go away, and it destroys trust. And are we ever going to be able to build that back If this goes away, it'll take years, Chris, really?
Christopher Mitchell (11:50):
Right? This is one of those things where I feel like you start learning about government and you're like, oh, wow. Look at the way government destroyed the trust of those communities. [00:12:00] I'm sure glad we've learned that lesson. And then you come along and you find out that you have such limited power and that all of a sudden you're a part of a structure that is actively destroying the trust of a new generation with these programs.
Jade Piros de Carvalho (12:13):
Exactly. And so these advocates are not just sad about the impact to them individually. They're sad about all these people they've brought along or have brought them along, and they've all come up together and now they feel personally responsible. They're not. [00:12:30] But like you said, they're part of the system, and so they're seen as part of the problem or part of,
Christopher Mitchell (12:36):
Lemme ask you what might be the most leading question I've ever asked you, which is one of the things that's really important about the BEAD program, which is getting all of these networks out into areas that have not had a high quality connection before, is that they are able to remain in business over time that they have a good business case. Is it helpful [00:13:00] to give people devices and training so that they would want to subscribe to and give their hard earned dollars to the network to help keep it operating?
Jade Piros de Carvalho (13:10):
And I think that that's something the industry broadly appreciates now, is that adoption drives the operating viability of networks. I think we're finally, we finally got that part through. And so I think the industry really appreciates that part of the Digital Equity Act is that it'll [00:13:30] drive adoption. More subscribers equals more revenue to operate and maintain the network long-term because there's not a lot of subscribers in these areas, and there's a reason and there's no density. So yeah, I think people have come along to that. They just maybe haven't made the connection to, oh, also we're training the workforce with these funds that are going to build these networks. And oh, also the person who's doing that grant to build the network is also being funded to do this grant that's [00:14:00] now going away. There's so many, again, interconnections, they're kind of inextricably linked in ways that we haven't fully appreciated until one goes away. Kind of like when ACP went away and we're like, oh, everybody's plan was contingent upon this program that is no longer here. So it's the same thing, but on a much larger level with the Digital Equity Act,
Christopher Mitchell (14:21):
It is deeply concerning. And we get to a point where I feel that we have so eroded the [00:14:30] basis of this program that even if BEAD is able to continue, you have to have serious concerns about its abilities to connect the people that we need to connect. So anyway, it's so frustrating. And I guess the last thing I want to ask you with regard to how state offices are reacting is as I'm just curious, I feel like state offices, they're on pause for some things right now. Are we seeing attrition with people? Because inevitably, when you're in [00:15:00] scenarios like this, you have top performers and top performers are the ones that will often see the writing on the wall and start looking and hopping out, and then hopefully the program will pick up again. And at that point, you've lost a lot of the institutional knowledge and you're training people, which takes even more time. So is that a dynamic that we're seeing? No,
Jade Piros de Carvalho (15:20):
Absolutely. I get calls every day asking if I've heard about opportunities, and these are people who are deeply committed and want to follow it through [00:15:30] that need to be reasonable about their ability to provide for their families. And so a lot of people are looking and it's going to leave us with the bottom of the parable. I hate saying that because there's good and bad, there's high and lip performers in every industry. And
Christopher Mitchell (15:47):
Do you want to name some names? No,
Jade Piros de Carvalho (15:50):
I mean, I can't even think of low performers. You know how I feel about state broadband offices. But we know that there are people who are going to jump ship that are [00:16:00] highly sought after in the private industry, and that's not going to be to the betterment the states and of this program, but we're seeing, we will see that at the NTIA as well. And then I think Evan talked about this when you had him on the podcast, then we're not going to have anybody to process these reports or the rest of the steps in program implementation, so it's going to slow it down some more. And then we're left with these broken promises and the inability to monitor networks and really verify that what was promised was built [00:16:30] and ah, it's a mess. It's a damn
Christopher Mitchell (16:32):
Mess. Yes. No, it's very frustrating and it's unnecessary. I do want to have another quick show in the future, which I'm sure that you'll be able to help me promote on LinkedIn. Jade, you're very active on LinkedIn talking about the legality of this because I'm someone who believes in rules, and I'm not entirely sure that we will find that this was a legal action. [00:17:00] In fact, I have significant doubts without having a law degree. And so we have all of this thrown up in the air for ultimately probably no reason except for delay and confusion. And so I just find it so frustrating.
Jade Piros de Carvalho (17:13):
It does not serve the purpose. It serves the purpose just as well as eliminating the program because if you just delay, delay, delay, delay has the same effect
Christopher Mitchell (17:22):
And then you
Jade Piros de Carvalho (17:23):
Drop their hands,
Christopher Mitchell (17:25):
Right? I think that is a part of the analysis, which is what is driving this. And [00:17:30] it is not the case that what is driving, this is what we've seen in the past, which is we've certainly seen a number of presidents who came in and they said, I'm for my people and I'm going to use the harshest tactics I can find to advance their interests. But as we've said so many times, these are the people who voted for the president. And it's hard to try and figure out what the goal is aside from one of chaos and creating distrust.
Jade Piros de Carvalho (17:58):
Yeah. I do hear [00:18:00] a lot also that this president has a mandate, and he's voted in and he is going to abide by what his voters wanted, but Congress was voted in too, and so they should have a say in the laws that they passed.
Christopher Mitchell (18:18):
A hundred percent agree. And I refuse to listen to people who say the president has a mandate only in the years in which their president was elected, and then they deny that any other president has ever had a mandate. So [00:18:30] people are entirely too credulous. And a lot of that comes from watching too much television news, I think. But we're a little bit ahead of a little bit off. This is been, for me, a crusade for 20 years, which is that I think television news is the worst thing that has happened to this country, which is just an overstatement, but one that gets the point of my heart, my strong feelings apart across. So Jade, I think as we're wrapping up, the takeaways that people need to be [00:19:00] aware of, I think, are that removing the Digital Equity Act puts at risk almost all of the things that some of the state broadband offices do. These state broadband offices don't have the ability to just shift their salaries around. They are at a significant risk of now not being able to meet other missions that they're tasked with.
Jade Piros de Carvalho (19:21):
Yes. And I might just add one other thing. Somebody was telling me, stop talking about this. We need to focus on saving BEAD. And I [00:19:30] said to them, I really think that this is giving canary and the coal mine energy because maybe it's just an attempt to see how much we can get away with. And who's to say they won't do the same with BEAD? Who's to say they won't do the same with transportation programs or cybersecurity or water programs in i a that we're all bipartisan. And so it's my feeling that the state should fight like hell even if they don't care about this particular program, because it's really setting a precedent for the fact that contracts with states on grant awards don't [00:20:00] matter, and these promises can just be ripped away, even if they're literally sitting in ASAP accounts and treasury earmarked for that state.
Christopher Mitchell (20:08):
Yes, I am in strong agreement that there's a phrase, actually, I think an anarchist Utah Phillips may have attributed this to a different person. AM and Nessy, I think it was on an album actually, and I DeFranco did these weird albums with Utah Phillips, and this is going to come back around [00:20:30] right now, you're just like, what is this guy talking about?
Jade Piros de Carvalho (20:32):
You were just far too well read because you're always pulling these rabbits out of the hat, and I'm like, I got to go Google
Christopher Mitchell (20:37):
That. You said you define freedom by, you assume freedom, and when someone tries to take it away from you, the degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free. And that just reminds me of what I think you're saying regarding the states, which is that this stuff is important and we need to defend the order. And it drives me crazy. [00:21:00] I was on a call this morning and I was like, I don't like the order. There's a lot of things I want to change with how the federal government operates.
Jade Piros de Carvalho (21:06):
Totally.
Christopher Mitchell (21:07):
At the same time, there needs to be a legal order that is predictable, more or less if flawed, that we can work on and adjust. We can't just have people say, well, we're just going to get rid of that program and this program, we're going to change these rules over here. Why do you even have a Congress at this point? Well,
Jade Piros de Carvalho (21:22):
Exactly.
Christopher Mitchell (21:23):
So for
Jade Piros de Carvalho (21:24):
People, why do they continue to let their power be stripped? I don't get [00:21:30] it, but that's another podcast,
Christopher Mitchell (21:33):
Right? It is. But I just think for those who are, does Chris suddenly care about reconnect and why does he care about this and that? It's because we need to have a system is predictable in order to work within it. Otherwise it devolves into chaos pretty quickly, and that is not good for anyone. Although frankly, I think if you look at me, I can chop my own wood. My wife can grow a garden. We're going to do better than a number of other people in the world in which all infrastructure comes tumbling down, but I still don't want to live
Jade Piros de Carvalho (22:00):
[00:22:00] There. Amen. I'm with you. I'm with you. Just because you stand up for a program doesn't mean it's your favorite program. We need some level of consistency and rule of law.
Christopher Mitchell (22:11):
Yes. That's what the rule of law, that's what we need to end up with. So didn't think we'd get there to be bragging about how I like lumber jacking, but anytime I can work that into a conversation, I enjoy it. Jade, thank you for coming on and tolerating me once again and sharing your experiences with the States.
Jade Piros de Carvalho (22:29):
Yeah. Well, thanks for [00:22:30] having me, and let's see if we can go make some good trouble together Chris
Ry Marcattilio (22:34):
We have transcripts for this and other podcasts available at muninetworks.org/broadbandbits. Email us @podcastmuninetworks.org with your ideas for the show. Follow Chris on Twitter, his handles @CommunityNets. Follow muninetworks.org. Stories on Twitter that handles @muninetworks. Subscribe to this and other podcasts from ILSR, including Building Local Power, Local Energy Rules, and the Composting [00:23:00] for Community Podcast. You can access them anywhere you get your podcasts. You can catch the latest important research from all of our initiatives if you subscribe to our monthly newsletter @ILSR.org. While you're there, please take a moment to donate your support in any amount. Keeps us going. Thank you to Arne Huseby for the song, Warm Duck Shuffle, licensed through Creative Comments. This was the Community Broadband Bits podcast. Thanks for listening.