A little more than a year ago West Virginia officials celebrated getting a jump toward improving broadband connectivity after the state became one of the first three approved to unlock millions of federal dollars.

Now state officials are expressing frustration over federal delays.

“It’s a digital inequity that we have in our state,” Senator Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said in a briefing with reporters, saying the $1.2 billion allocated for West Virginia broadband “should have been out the door; it’s not.”

“And there’s a hold on our application right now. We were six weeks away from having our application approved, so that we could begin to work; turn the door to get these last the broadband connections to everybody. I’m very frustrated.”

Capito sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, asking him to expedite the review and release of updated guidance for the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program and urged that West Virginia not have to redo significant portions of their application.

Lutnick announced earlier this year that Commerce would undertake a “rigorous review” of the BEAD program, part of the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law and amounting to $42 billion nationwide.

Under the program, states were to be allocated funding to deploy or upgrade high-speed internet networks to ensure that everyone has access to reliable, affordable, high-speed Internet service.

West Virginia officials had believed the state was within striking distance of real benefits of the broadband support.

During a meeting today of the West Virginia Broadband Enhancement Council, members reaffirmed support for fiber deployment to enhance broadband access, expressing concern over the BEAD program’s pause since March 5.

The council unanimously approved a resolution saying a lengthy delay with respect to West Virginia is unnecessary because the state completed the comprehensive BEAD application process well before deadline.

Kelly Workman, director of the West Virginia Office of Broadband, discussed the state’s long track record of progress to draw down the federal dollars.

“West Virginia secured all approvals to date. We have a solid program,” Workman said. “It’s been vetted. We’ve executed that program successfully, and states like West Virginia that are at this point, we would hope the federal government would allow us to move forward.”

Being required to re-bid would be a worst-case scenario, Workman said.

“It would set us back tremendously and likely increase our costs across the board,” she said. “Don’t delay — deploy. Let’s get going.

“The most important concern for all of us is that West Virginians continue to lack broadband. You know, this is a situation that we’ve all worked very hard to try to remedy. So the longer that is delayed, the longer it delays our ability to compete.”