Enhancing Administrative Reviews for Broadband Deployment Act

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Bill ID: 119/hr/5419
Last Updated: December 13, 2025

Sponsored by

Rep. Kean, Thomas H. [R-NJ-7]

ID: K000398

Bill's Journey to Becoming a Law

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Latest Action

Subcommittee Hearings Held

December 11, 2025

Introduced

Committee Review

📍 Current Status

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Floor Action

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Passed House

🏛️

Senate Review

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Passed Congress

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Presidential Action

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Became Law

📚 How does a bill become a law?

1. Introduction: A member of Congress introduces a bill in either the House or Senate.

2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.

3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.

4. Other Chamber: If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber (House or Senate) for the same process.

5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.

6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.

7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!

Bill Summary

Another masterpiece of legislative theater, courtesy of the esteemed members of Congress. Let's dissect this farce, shall we?

**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The Enhancing Administrative Reviews for Broadband Deployment Act (HR 5419) claims to aim at streamlining the review process for communications use authorizations on public lands and National Forest System land. In other words, it's a bill that promises to grease the wheels of bureaucracy for the benefit of... well, we'll get to that in a minute.

**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill requires the Secretaries of Interior and Agriculture to conduct studies on the review process, identify barriers, and propose revisions to rules and regulations. It also mandates a report to Congress within a year, outlining the findings and a plan for staffing necessary to ensure timely reviews.

Sounds innocuous enough, but let's not be fooled. This is just a Trojan horse for the real beneficiaries: telecommunications companies and their lobbyists. The bill's language is carefully crafted to facilitate the deployment of broadband infrastructure on public lands, which will undoubtedly lead to a windfall for these corporate interests.

**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The usual suspects are involved:

* Telecommunications companies (e.g., Verizon, AT&T) who will reap the benefits of streamlined reviews and increased access to public lands. * Lobbying groups like the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) and the CTIA – The Wireless Association, which have already begun salivating at the prospect of easier deployment. * Environmental organizations, which might be concerned about the impact on public lands and wildlife habitats, but will likely be steamrolled by the bill's proponents. * Taxpayers, who will foot the bill for the increased staffing and bureaucratic costs associated with this "streamlining" effort.

**Potential Impact & Implications:** This bill is a classic example of regulatory capture, where industry interests hijack the legislative process to serve their own needs. The real disease here is corruption, and the symptoms are:

* Increased access to public lands for corporate interests, potentially at the expense of environmental concerns. * A further erosion of transparency and accountability in the review process. * More taxpayer dollars wasted on bureaucratic inefficiencies.

The diagnosis? This bill is a tumor on the body politic, fueled by the cancer of corruption and greed. The sponsors and cosponsors are either complicit or incompetent, and the voters who elect them are either asleep at the wheel or willfully ignorant.

In short, HR 5419 is a masterclass in legislative sleight-of-hand, designed to benefit corporate interests at the expense of the public good. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have better things to do than watch this farce unfold.

Related Topics

Government Operations & Accountability Small Business & Entrepreneurship Congressional Rules & Procedures National Security & Intelligence Criminal Justice & Law Enforcement Transportation & Infrastructure Civil Rights & Liberties Federal Budget & Appropriations State & Local Government Affairs
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đź’° Campaign Finance Network

Rep. Kean, Thomas H. [R-NJ-7]

Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle

Total Contributions
$85,200
19 donors
PACs
$0
Organizations
$6,600
Committees
$0
Individuals
$78,600

No PAC contributions found

1
EASTERN BAND OF CHEROKEE INDIANS
2 transactions
$6,600

No committee contributions found

1
LOEB, JOHN
2 transactions
$13,200
2
VOCCOLA, FREDERICK
2 transactions
$10,100
3
PRYMA, THOMAS
2 transactions
$6,600
4
PISANO, JOHN
1 transaction
$3,700
5
NIEMIEC, DAVID
1 transaction
$3,300
6
TAYLOR, ALEXANDER
1 transaction
$3,300
7
BRUECKNER, RICHARD F.
1 transaction
$3,300
8
BURNS, EMILY
1 transaction
$3,300
9
BURNS, MICHAEL
1 transaction
$3,300
10
CUMMINGS, KEVIN MR.
1 transaction
$3,300
11
TAYLOR, KARAN TAIKINA
1 transaction
$3,300
12
BANKE, BARBARA R.
1 transaction
$3,300
13
DEVOS, RICHARD JR.
1 transaction
$3,300
14
OVERDEVEST, EDWARD
1 transaction
$3,300
15
LEGOW, DAVID
1 transaction
$3,300
16
DEMUTH, CHARLES JR.
1 transaction
$3,300
17
PATE, LUTHER S IV
1 transaction
$3,300
18
STEPHENS, WARREN
1 transaction
$2,100

Donor Network - Rep. Kean, Thomas H. [R-NJ-7]

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Showing 20 nodes and 23 connections

Total contributions: $85,200

Top Donors - Rep. Kean, Thomas H. [R-NJ-7]

Showing top 19 donors by contribution amount

1 Org18 Individuals

Project 2025 Policy Matches

This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document. Higher similarity scores indicate stronger thematic connections.

Introduction

Moderate 60.9%
Pages: 888-890

— 856 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise Administration gave the green light for recipients to spend those funds to overbuild existing high-speed networks in communities that already have multiple broadband providers. A new Administration should eliminate government-funded overbuilding of existing networks. l Adopt a national coordinating strategy. Hundreds of billions of infrastructure dollars have been appropriated by Congress or budgeted by agencies over the past couple of years that can be used to end the digital divide. Yet, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, “U.S. broadband efforts are not guided by a national strategy”; instead, “[f]ederal broadband efforts are fragmented and overlapping, with more than 100 programs administered by 15 agencies,” risking overbuilding as well as wasteful duplication.26 Many of these programs remain plagued by inefficiency, further contributing to waste of limited taxpayer dollars. Moreover, the federal government is failing to put appropriate guardrails in place to govern the expenditure of billions in broadband funds. This is the regulatory equivalent of turning the spigot on full blast and then walking away from the hose. There is a worrisome lack of adequate tracking, measurement, and accountability standards governing all of this broadband spending. As a result, we are likely to see headline levels of waste, fraud, and abuse. A new Administration needs to bring fresh oversight to this spending and put a national strategy in place to ensure that the federal government adopts a coordinated approach to its various broadband initiatives. Similarly, the next Administration should ask the FCC to launch a review of its existing broadband programs, including the different components of the USF, with the goal of avoiding duplication, improving efficiency of existing programs, and saving taxpayer money. l Correct the FCC’s regulatory trajectory and encourage competition to improve connectivity. The FCC is a New Deal–era agency. Its history of regulation tends to reflect the view that the federal government should impose heavy-handed regulation rather than relying on competition and market forces to produce optimal outcomes. President Franklin D. Roosevelt recommended that Congress create the FCC in February 1934 for the purposes of establishing “a single Government agency charged with broad authority” over the field of communications.27 Congress subsequently established the FCC through the Communications Act of 1934. Congress has passed a number of additional statutes—some broad, some — 857 — Federal Communications Commission narrow—that pertain to the FCC’s authority, including most significantly the Telecommunications Act of 1996,28 which opened up markets for greater competition and largely deregulated industry segments. Technological change in the connectivity sector is occurring rapidly. We are now seeing an unprecedented level of convergence, innovation, and competition in the market for connectivity. On the one hand, traditional cable providers like Charter are now offering mobile wireless services to consumers in direct competition with traditional wireless companies like Verizon. On the other hand, a new generation of low-earth orbit satellite services like StarLink and Amazon’s Project Kuiper stand to offer high- speed home broadband in competition with legacy providers. Furthermore, broadcasters are offering high-speed downloads directly to consumers over spectrum that previously provided only TV service. These rapidly evolving market conditions counsel in favor of eliminating many of the heavy-handed FCC regulations that were adopted in an era when every technology operated in a silo. These include many of the FCC’s media ownership rules, which can have the effect of restricting investment and competition because those regulations assume a far more limited set of competitors for advertising dollars than exist today, as well as its universal service requirements. Ultimately, FCC reliance on competition and innovation is vital if the agency is to deliver optimal outcomes for the American public. The FCC should engage in a serious top-to-bottom review of its regulations and take steps to rescind any that are overly cumbersome or outdated. The Commission should focus its efforts on creating a market-friendly regulatory environment that fosters innovation and competition from a wide range of actors, including cable-based, broadband-based, and satellite- based Internet providers. AUTHOR’S NOTE: The preparation of this chapter was a collective enterprise of individuals involved in the 2025 Presidential Transition Project. All contributors to this chapter are listed at the front of this volume. While this chapter identifies certain issues on which the contributors did not all agree, the author alone assumes responsibility for the content of this chapter, and no views expressed herein should be attributed to any other individual.

About These Correlations

Policy matches are calculated using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text. A score of 60% or higher indicates meaningful thematic overlap. This does not imply direct causation or intent, but highlights areas where legislation aligns with Project 2025 policy objectives.