Burgess Urges House Rules to Allow Amendment to Nix Anti-Ligado Text

Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, spoke for his two pro-Ligado amendments, which he filed with fellow House Commerce Committee member Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill. Both amendments would remove existing language from HR-6395. One would bar DOD from using funding to “retrofit any [GPS] device or system, or network that uses” GPS “to mitigate interference” from Ligado’s planned “commercial terrestrial operations." The other provision the lawmakers want to remove would bar the Pentagon from signing, extending or renewing a contract “with an entity that engages in commercial terrestrial operations” on the L band unless the secretary of defense certifies lack of interference to DOD GPS devices.

Burgess, a House Rules member, defended FCC approval of the Ligado proposal. He noted the commission’s unanimity in favor of the plan and language in the order that places “significant restrictions” on the company’s proposed operations. DOD claims the L-band operations “will cause harmful interference” for DOD GPS operations, but “if the capabilities supporting our armed forces are susceptible to” the planned “lower power” operations, “then I think we’ve got much bigger concerns for the integrity of said military networks,” Burgess said. The proposed restriction on DOD funding to mitigate Ligado interference is “unnecessary” since the FCC already requires the company “to repair or replace any government device susceptible to harmful interference.”

“Management of commercial spectrum licenses lies solely within the independent” FCC, Burgess said. “There is no reason to include such” provisions in HR-6395 “just because the DOD is unhappy with the decision of an otherwise independent federal agency.” Behind-the-scenes “negotiations are ongoing” to address House Commerce leaders’ concerns about HR-6395’s existing Ligado language and “I look forward to a successful resolution” of the dispute between House Commerce and the Armed Services Committee, he said.

House Rules hadn’t yet examined an amendment from Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee ranking member Mike Turner, R-Ohio. It would say the FCC's Ligado approval has “no force or effect” until 90 days after the commission and NTIA certify to Congress results of a proposed Sandia National Laboratories-conducted test of potential harmful interference effects of the L-band operations on GPS.

Public Knowledge, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance and seven other groups jointly urged House leaders before the Rules meeting “not to endorse efforts” by DOD “and its allies to veto commercial spectrum authorizations” via the HR-6395 language. The FCC “has proven itself to be the expert agency on resolving spectrum disputes based on science and engineering and should be allowed to do the job Congress authorized it to do,” the groups said in a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. Codification of HR-6395’s language “as well as any other similar language settled on in conference with the Senate would inflame current and future spectrum disagreements among agencies and have tremendous negative ripple effects on the efforts many of you have led to support 5G."

Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz., supported an amendment to attach modified text from the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (Chips) for America Act. HR-7178/S-3933 would allocate funding to match state and local incentives and direct the Commerce Department to establish a grant program. The amendment “would have a positive impact on the ability to expand leading-edge logic” in the U.S., Lesko said. The Senate is set to vote this week on an amendment to S-4049 to attach the text of S-3933 (see 2007020053).