Senate Commerce Postpones Votes on SAT Streamlining Act, Other Bills
The Senate Commerce Committee postponed planned votes Tuesday on the Satellite and Telecommunications Streamlining Act (S-3639) and three other communications policy bills after the panel lost the member quorum needed to mark up any legislation. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump signed the FY 2026 appropriations package (HR-7148), ending a short government funding lapse that saw the FCC continue to operate as normal (see 2602020060). The House earlier in the day voted 217-214 to pass the package, which allocated the FCC $416.1 million for FY 2026, including $13.5 million for its Office of Inspector General, and the FTC $383.6 million (see 2601120056).
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Senate Commerce ranking member Maria Cantwell of Washington and other Democrats objected to S-3639’s text during the panel’s truncated meeting Tuesday because of misgivings that it would allow the FCC to rubber-stamp satellite applications from SpaceX. S-3639 would revamp the FCC’s licensing processes, including setting a one-year deadline for the commission to fully evaluate a satellite license application (see 2601140076). The House failed to pass a previous version of the measure during the last Congress amid a jurisdictional fight between the House Commerce and Science committees (see 2307260037).
Also on the aborted agenda were the Orbital Sustainability Act (S-1898), the Modernization, Accountability and Planning for Broadband Funding Act (S-2585) and the 988 Lifeline Location Improvement Act (S-3199).
Cantwell offered an amendment to S-3639 that would have jettisoned language that would deem any satellite application to be granted if the FCC fails to render a decision “by the end of the applicable review period” of up to 18 months. The “space economy is booming, and I want to keep it that way,” she said. “But we are talking about mega constellations of thousands of satellites sharing spectrum with aviation, GPS, weather forecasting, emergency services, national security operations, and that is exactly the moment where we need to get this process right, not abandon it.”
“We’re not trying to ultimately prohibit [S-3639] from moving, [but] we think that this process where you take care of the ground [earth] stations … is something to focus on,” Cantwell said. “The FCC reviews these applications for a reason, mostly because of interference, to protect the safety of life [and] services and screen for national security risks and ensure these constellations serve the public. Automatic approval does not speed up that review. It simply eliminates it. If we think the FCC is too slow, let's fix the process.”
S-3639's lead sponsor, Senate Commerce Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, countered that nothing in the bill “limits the FCC's ability to deny an application. The FCC can say ‘no’ to one satellite or a million satellites. Nothing in this prohibits the FCC’s ability to grant the application. All this is doing is speeding up the process, which is a commonsense step.” The FCC’s “considerable backlog [of satellite applications] is a real problem,” Cruz argued. Demand “is increasing significantly, and it is increasing in the face of competition from China. In January, the Chinese filed at the ITU to launch 200,000 satellites. Adverse countries are launching their satellites regardless of anything we do, and if we are going to continue to lead in space ... we need to be able to move with speed and to be agile.”
'Feelings' on Musk
Cruz suggested that Democrats’ concerns about S-3639’s "deemed-granted" language stem from “strong feelings” in opposition to SpaceX owner Elon Musk, given that company’s application last week for licensing a constellation of up to 1 million solar-powered data center satellites (see 2602020003). The “uniform rules ought to apply to everyone and not have an Elon Musk exception for negative treatment because of perceptions in the political arena,” Cruz said. He noted that House Commerce’s previous version of the bill during the last Congress contained “similar language.”
Cantwell said she’s concerned about how the deemed-granted language would affect the FCC Space Bureau’s review of the SpaceX application. “Literally, the FCC could fail to take any action on this, and within 1 1/2 years, 1 million satellites would be approved,” she said. “That's 66 times more than everything in current orbit.”
Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., earlier offered and then withdrew an amendment that would have required any satellite provider seeking to use S-3639’s streamlining process to comply with rules for the $42.5 billion BEAD program included in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Rosen noted reports that SpaceX “was seeking to exempt itself from critical [BEAD requirements, including] performance testing, network installation and reserving capacity in its network” (see 2601280063).
“Allowing Musk to rewrite the BEAD rules is a betrayal of the letter and the spirit of the law,” Rosen said. “I refuse to let the BEAD program be corrupted to fund hundreds of millions of dollars to one company at the expense of all taxpayers, while leaving rural Americans behind.” Rosen withdrew the proposal after Cruz committed to her demand for what she called an NTIA “briefing or a meeting on the Starlink rider and how they plan to uphold the integrity of the BEAD program.”