Cantwell Urges Against DOD Overtures to Senate GOP on Spectrum Pipeline
Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., pressed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday “to guard the critical spectrum resources currently assigned to” DOD, which has proposed reallocating some military-controlled bands (see 2504040068). Cantwell said any DOD reallocation in response to congressional Republicans’ push for a spectrum pipeline as part of a coming budget reconciliation package would put “short-term corporate gain ahead of our nation’s long-term security.”
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If President Donald Trump’s high-profile promise of a Golden Dome that will protect the U.S. from missile attacks, similar to Israel’s Iron Dome defense system, “remains a priority for the Administration, we need assurances that taking spectrum away from [DOD] will in no way impede or delay the effectiveness of this initiative,” Cantwell said in a letter to Hegseth. The DOD in March suggested making 420 MHz of military-controlled bandwidth available for FCC auction while maintaining the Pentagon's grip on the 3.1-3.45 GHz band. Negotiations that will determine the fate of the pipeline in reconciliation are continuing this week (see 2505020047).
“A substantial number of military radar systems that operate in the lower 3 GHz band are also endangered. These systems are highly dependent on electromagnetic spectrum, and we cannot afford to destabilize them,” Cantwell said. Moving DOD radar systems “to another band is both technologically challenging and costly -- estimates say as high as $120 billion.”
Auctioning “this band before we understand the full consequences of doing so risks exposing [the U.S.] to even more significant incursions -- and next time, it may not merely be a Chinese balloon that we can’t afford to miss,” Cantwell said. She appeared to be referring to the lower 3 GHz band, but DOD’s proposal would move some military radar systems out of the 1780-1850 MHz, 5850-5895 MHz and 7125-7250 MHz bands.
Cantwell criticized DOD’s proposal for moving radar systems currently on the 3550-3650 MHz citizens broadband radio service (CBRS) band onto the lower 3 GHz band. “This would do more [than] disrupt critical naval operations and homeland defense,” she said. “Transferring control of this band would also undermine an innovative ecosystem of commercial wireless technology that will be extremely valuable for robotic manufacturing, precision agriculture, ubiquitous connectivity in large indoor spaces, and private wireless networks supporting the industrial uses and improved data connectivity.”
Cantwell also blasted proposals to repurpose the 4.4 GHz band, which DOD uses for unmanned aircraft systems, along with the plans for the 6, 7 and 8 GHz bands. “We cannot afford to disrupt these complex and extremely critical systems,” she said. “We cannot risk repeating these same mistakes as China rapidly increases its strike capacity. I urge you to consider these issues and engage appropriately to defend both DoD’s capabilities and our nation.” DOD didn’t immediately comment.
Meanwhile, Digital Progress Institute President Joel Thayer urged House leaders Tuesday to include a spectrum pipeline in the reconciliation package. Thayer argued that at least 825 MHz of midband spectrum could make it into a statutory pipeline if lawmakers push to reallocate the lower 3 GHz band and others. Selling off the lower 3 GHz band “could bring in $76.3 billion,” which could offset an extension of the 2017 tax cuts and other GOP priorities for the reconciliation package, Thayer said in a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., and their Democratic counterparts. “Congress not considering this option to offset its spending is legislative malfeasance.”