The Office of Broadband Development gave a year end review this morning. They spoke about what’s happened in the last year, which focused on BEAD. The big news is that they are still waiting to get final approval of the BEAD proposal. They have had 18 rounds of curing the proposal and it sounds as if they are getting close. They hope to hear more before the end of the year. Sonds they are also hoping for State funds in the future.

They shared information on how much each county is slated to review from BEAD.

Lots of details on what the process will be for subgrantees once the proposal is approved.

They are hoping to announce the last round awards for Line Extension funding.

Questions:

Will the OBD release a template Attorney Letter associated with the LoC & Performance Bond?
They are working on what they need. An answer will be available soon.

When/how will we receive the geospatial request and how long will we have to complete that information?
Hi Jamie, when our grantor portal opens, you can upload the project’s geospatial data to the portal. I recommend taking a look at the geospatial data you submitted when you applied and see if it meets the requirements mentioned in the slide and if it includes all of the preliminary awarded locations.  There is no limit on how long you have to complete the geospatial data, but the faster you submit, the faster we will be able to review and work through NEPA.
The Us Forestry permitting process can take up to 270 days….

Hi! Should we plan on further location negotiations taking place once there is approval from NTIA?
We will be reaching out to providers/applicants. There will be an opportunity to negotiate but we won’t know how much negotiation is possible given federal rules.

Megan, please explain how requests for permits from US Forestry or MN DNR interface with MN’s NEPA permitting. If the NTIA/MN NEPA determination is that the project should be awarded a CatEX, how does that CatEX expedite permits from US Forestry, Fish & Game or MN DNR.
We recommend getting through NEPA through ESAP tool. That can be submitted this licenses and permits. The agencies will want to see the NEPA info.

Megan following up, on NEPA determination question above, did the NTIA get interagency agreements from BLM, US Forestry to honor the NTIA CatEX determination?
Not positive. Both have released a memo about broadband.