Blackburn Wants 'Revisit' of Spectrum Bill on DOD; Senate Commerce Leaders Eye Ligado

Blackburn said after Senate Commerce’s vote she has “reservations” with the current S-3717 language, which she recognizes is a “compromise” between committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and their Armed Services Committee counterparts. S-3717 would require NTIA develop a plan for modernizing its IT systems, including “ways to improve the management of" DOD and other "covered agencies’ use of Federal spectrum through that infrastructure." It would require NTIA develop “a time-based automated mechanism” to “share Federal spectrum between covered agencies.”

“The bill directs the NTIA to study how to give” DOD “access to spectrum that is held by other federal agencies,” Blackburn said during the meeting. “If DOD gains access to bands used by other federal agencies, then it will become more difficult to clear these bands for commercial use.” The Pentagon “needs to make more spectrum available for commercial use, not less,” she said. “To achieve dominance” over China in 5G development, “we are going to need to have DOD work through this with the commercial providers.”

Blackburn wants Wicker and other lawmakers to “revisit” S-3717’s language before Senate floor consideration and “think long and hard about giving DOD the ability to control spectrum that is used by other federal agencies.” She later told us that “we’re still looking” at how to resolve her concerns. “What we have to do is move DOD toward working with some of our commercial developers in order for us to defeat China” on 5G, Blackburn said. “I didn’t oppose it” during the vote but “we haven’t reached a final resolution.”

“I hope” there’s a way to address Blackburn’s qualms with S-3717, Wicker told us. “She has a valid concern and we’re going to be working with her to try to resolve that.”

Ligado

A Senate Commerce hearing on the FCC’s Ligado decision remains “on my mind” but hasn't been scheduled, Wicker told us. A Senate Armed Services hearing earlier this month focused on DOD concerns and didn’t include FCC or Ligado perspectives (see 2005060065).

“There is a lot of angst” about the situation “and I’m not convinced it is all justified," Wicker said. "I think we all need to be fully informed” about the situation. He’s “mindful” of Cantwell’s concerns. She signed on last week to a letter led by Senate Armed Services Chairman Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., urging the FCC reconsider its position (see 2005150061).

“There’s got to be more coordination” between the FCC and other federal agencies on spectrum issues than has been the case in recent years, Cantwell told us: “Air transportation and next-gen systems” are at risk of potential interference from Ligado’s proposed use of the L band. “One of the most important things for us to do in modernizing our air transportation system is to move to next-gen systems,” she said. “I want answers to how we’re going to protect vital spectrum” for those systems.

Senate Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee Chairman John Kennedy, R-La., told us he’s monitoring the debate. “I haven’t made my mind up,” he said: “I’m looking at both sides.”

Public Knowledge led a Wednesday letter with the Competitive Carriers Association, International Center for Law & Economics, New America’s Open Technology Institute, Taxpayers Protection Alliance and more than 30 other groups and officials urging House and Senate Armed Services not to interfere with the Ligado order. “Congress directed that the FCC exercise exclusive jurisdiction over commercial spectrum decisions,” the groups wrote Inhofe, House Armed Services Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., and the committees’ ranking members. “By asking” President Donald Trump “to pressure the FCC to reverse its decision, the Senate Armed Services Committee wants the President to transgress the FCC’s independence and authority, a clear violation of separation of powers.” The committees’ leaders suggested last month that Trump intervene (see 2004230001).

“Coherent federal spectrum policy is a nonpartisan issue, as this letter proves,” PK and the other groups said. “There are very few issues that garner this level of consensus amongst groups who have such disparate ideological views. The fact that we have combined to send this letter should send a strong message to” DOD and the Armed Services committees “that the FCC needs to be allowed to do its highly specialized job.”

Senate Commerce advanced Johnson to the full chamber on a voice vote, along with acting NOAA Administrator Neil Jacobs and acting Assistant Secretary of Transportation-Transportation Policy Finch Fulton. They had a March confirmation hearing (see 2003110054). The committee advanced DOT Assistant Secretary-Research and Technology nominee Diana Furchtgott-Roth on a party-line 14-12 vote. Cantwell said Furchtgott-Roth remains a “controversial” nominee and noted the committee hasn’t held a new confirmation hearing for her this Congress. Trump first nominated Furchtgott-Roth in 2017 (see 1709290027).

Senate Commerce advanced three other tech bills on voice votes: a modified version of the Identifying Outputs of Generative Adversarial Networks Act (S-2904), the revised Advanced Technological Manufacturing Act (S-3704) and Cybersecurity Competitions to Yield Better Efforts to Research the Latest Exceptionally Advanced Problems (Cyber Leap) Act (S-3712). S-2904 would require the National Science Foundation to support research on deepfakes and other manipulated content. S-3704 would expand the number of colleges eligible for NSF grants. S-3712 would create a National Cybersecurity Guard Challenges program to “achieve high-priority breakthroughs in cybersecurity by 2028.”