1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

Reject the Trump administration's BEAD grant terms. Do not sign the agreement with the NTIA. The window to fight this on favorable legal ground is closing fast, and accepting the money forfeits our best options. Legal experts are clear: if the state signs before challenging the terms, any lawsuit gets kicked to the DC Circuit, where the bar for overturning the agreement is "enormously more difficult." But if we act now, we can sue in the Ninth Circuit, where the state has a strong chance of winning. The CPUC deadline is the end of this month, but a 30-day extension is available — use it to file suit instead. New York accepted $664.6 million in BEAD funding and may now be unable to enforce its own Affordable Broadband Act, which required ISPs to offer $15-to-$20-per-month service to low-income households. That law survived an industry legal challenge less than two years ago. Accepting federal strings effectively handed that victory back. California should not repeat that mistake. Fight the terms in court now, while we still can.