Morrisey blames Trump administration changes for excluding 40,000 locations from broadband plan

By Tre Spencer | Mountain State Spotlight

This article was originally published by Mountain State Spotlight, whose mission is to help West Virginians improve our state by producing “sustained outrage” journalism that exposes abuses of power by government, business, and other institutions. You can make a donation here, or sign up for their newsletters here.

Gov. Patrick Morrisey says federal rule changes, not the state’s decisions, significantly reduced the locations served by the state’s $1.2 billion broadband expansion. 

On Monday, Morrisey praised the Trump administration even as he acknowledged that its policies would exclude thousands of West Virginia locations from a federal broadband program meant to deliver high-speed internet.

“We don’t get to write all the rules in West Virginia,” he said. 

The federal Broadband Equity and Access Deployment program was designed to provide West Virginia with $1.2 billion in funding to connect every home to the internet.

But after the Trump administration took office and rewrote the rules of the program, more funding was dished out to satellite internet providers like Starlink. 

The changes cut the number of West Virginia structures served by more than 40,000. 

About half of those were eliminated from the program because new high-speed service was made available to them, according to the state’s broadband office. More than 80 of those that were cut included libraries and other locations intended to make broadband available to the general public.

More than 18,000 were cut because they were reclassified as not serviceable, because some were found to be accessory buildings, or other types of structures that were not occupied homes or businesses.

And federal officials removed some locations from the program that rely on fixed wireless internet delivered by signals from cell towers.

For families with that service, the change means that the broadband they already have is being treated as good enough, even if they have slower, unreliable connections in a state where mountains and hollows often hurt internet speeds. 

Morrisey said state broadband officials plan to rely on leftover American Rescue Plan Act dollars to connect residents dropped by the BEAD program. In June, nearly $30 million in ARPA funds were awarded to 10 counties to bring broadband to thousands of homes. 

“We tried to maximize the numbers that we could do directly through the BEAD program,” he said. “We’re doing everything we can, under our power, to expand.” 

Currently, only half of the $1.2 billion funding that West Virginia has been awarded is set to go to companies to build fiber internet. 

“While the initial application was higher than where it is now, the savings that were generated, we think, could be very advantageous for other investments that benefit the West Virginia economy,” he said. 

State officials have not yet detailed where the other half might go, but leftover BEAD funding was supposed to support building more cell towers and broadband workforce training programs, according to the state’s original proposal. 

Meanwhile, federal officials say the shrinking list of eligible homes is a sign of progress, not failure. 

A spokesperson from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration said the agency refined the list of eligible locations over the past three years to ensure no taxpayer dollars are wasted and that many have been served through other federal programs or private investment. 

Morrisey said, “There’s very likely more goodness in front of us as the Trump administration issues a new set of guidelines.”