Issue Brief 21-11
September 17, 2021
Summary 

UPDATE: The president signed the IIJA on November 15, 2021. The bill is unchanged from the version described in this brief.

The Senate has approved and sent to the House a five-year infrastructure bill, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA, H.R. 3684). The nearly 3,000-page bill authorizes and, in some cases, appropriates funding for a wide variety of programs in transportation, energy, water, broadband, and other areas.

This brief summarizes the broadband programs—found in Divisions F and J—focusing primarily on four new programs the bill would create in the Department of Commerce to fund more widespread and equitable broadband access. Altogether, the bill appropriates more than $62 billion for new and existing broadband programs over the next five years.