A Full Court Press for Permitting Reform in 2025

Editor's Note: Published on Dec. 8, 2025; republished on Dec. 31, 2025.

Permitting reform became one of the few cross-cutting infrastructure buzzwords in 2025. It became a shared obsession for broadband builders seeking BEAD funding and for energy developers racing to add generation, transmission, and data-center-linked capacity.

12 Days of Broadband 2025 (click to open)

• On the First Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:__One Carr driving the Federal Communications Commission .
• On the Second Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:__Two superpowers racing toward AI superintelligence dominance .
• On the Third Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:Three branches of government (and some formerly independent agencies).
• On the Fourth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:__Four programs with Universal Service Funds .
• On the Fifth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:__56 states and territories without digital equity grants.
• On the Sixth Day of Broadband, my true level sent to me:__Less than 6 months for a broadband permit .
• On the Seventh Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:__Data center-powered electricity bills up 70 percent .
• On the Eighth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:__800 megahertz of spectrum to sell at auction .
• On the Ninth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:__$9 billion + 12 billion (or $21 billion) in BEAD remaining funds .
• On the Tenth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:__Not even $10/month for an affordable connectivity program .
• On the Eleventh Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:__Through BEAD and broadband, 110 million locations served .
• On the Twelfth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:__More than 1200 megahertz of spectrum for unlicensed wireless .

Click to read each of the 12 Days of Broadband articles!

Broadband and energy deployment are both critical to national digital infrastructure investment. Both can be slowed by the same environmental, historic, and right-of-way bottlenecks that haunt power lines and pipelines.

In the broadband world, 2025 was less about a single breakthrough than a layered push across the White House, Congress, the Federal Communications Commission and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration of the Commerce Department — with most of the momentum aimed at eliminating repetitive review for routine work and setting clearer timelines for the rest.

The White House seeks streamlining

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