Senate Armed Services Leaders Back DOD Objections to Ligado; Others Skeptical

Several top Senate Armed Services Committee members appeared to side Wednesday with DOD officials on the department’s concerns with FCC OK of Ligado’s L-band plan. Others voiced skepticism about some Pentagon claims. Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., and others have been exploring legislative options to intervene (see 2004230001). Ligado, which wasn’t represented at the hearing, defended its plan and the approval order.

“What I’m most upset about is the failure of the interagency process behind this decision,” Inhofe said. “The FCC may not be in [Senate Armed Services’] jurisdiction, but the effects of its decision sure are.” A “few powerful people” on the commission made a “hasty decision” to approve the Ligado proposal “against the judgment of every other agency involved, and without cluing" in President Donald Trump, Inhofe said. "I’ve had conversations with him" and "I can assure you that’s the case.”

“It’s a “complex issue, but it ultimately boils down to risk," Inhofe said. "I do not think it is a good idea to place at risk the GPS signals that enable our national and economic security for the benefit of one company and its investors.” He noted recent opposition from the Aerospace Industries Association, Air Line Pilots Association, National Defense Industry Association and Transportation Construction Coalition.

Senate Armed Service ranking member Jack Reed, D-R.I., noted concerns with Ligado’s plan that track with DOD objections. “I don’t believe the FCC decision is in the public interest,” he said. Reed believes the commission’s order doesn’t adequately factor in the potential impacts on DOD systems, nor the expense and difficulties in replacing existing GPS equipment to handle interference from Ligado. Reed suggested that if the FCC had “followed what was the norm” in the rulemaking process, “that would have given every stakeholder the opportunity to comment.” Many FCC allies tweeted that the commission did just that.

DOD officials made many of the same points in opposition to Ligado that Defense Secretary Mark Esper voiced. The approval is “a shortsighted giveaway that will disrupt our way of life and potentially cost the American people billions of dollars,” Esper said Tuesday night in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece. It will “disrupt the daily lives and commerce of millions of Americans and inject unacceptable risk into systems that are critical for emergency response, aviation and missile defense.” It will “stunt innovation in GPS,” he said. “People won’t use the system if they can’t depend on it.”

“There are too many unknowns and the risks are too great to allow the proposed Ligado system to proceed in light of the operational impact to GPS,” said DOD Chief information Officer Dana Deasy. “While we set out to redesign and refresh hundreds of millions of GPS receivers in our installed national security and industrial base, others, especially Russia and China, will be quick to take advantage of our mistake by offering replacement systems that are not vulnerable to Ligado’s interference,” said Undersecretary of Defense-Research and Engineering Michael Griffin.

FCC Defended

Ligado and the FCC pushed back against the DOD ahead of the hearing.

“Given all of the untrue statements being made at the hearing, it is difficult to know where to begin,” an FCC spokesperson emailed. "The repeated claim that federal agencies unanimously oppose our order is blatantly false, as our decision has been endorsed by” Attorney General William Barr and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. DOD and all other agencies on the Interdepartment Radio Advisory Committee were “given our draft decision last autumn, so the assertion that they were blindsided by it this April is preposterous,” the spokesperson said. “Nothing said today changes the basic facts” that DOD's metric “to measure harmful interference does not, in fact, measure harmful interference and that the testing on which they are relying took place at dramatically higher power levels than the FCC approved."

It’s “unfortunate” Senate Armed Services “will not have the opportunity to hear from any witnesses from Ligado, whose spectrum is at issue, nor from the FCC, whose decision is the subject of your hearing,” company Chairman Ivan Seidenberg and CEO Doug Smith said in a letter Wednesday to Inhofe and Reed. The FCC’s decision “was delivered after four years of consideration, carefully and meticulously analyzes the extensive record, all of the testing in the record, the DoD’s position, national and international standards on protecting GPS, and all available evidence, and it concluded on a bipartisan and unanimous basis that the Ligado spectrum proposal will not affect GPS devices.” Claims “to the contrary are unrelated to the GPS-specific concerns before this Committee, and are inconsistent with the broad, bipartisan agreement among policy makers and across industry that U.S. global technological leadership demands that we purse an ‘all of the above’ spectrum strategy,” the executives said.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., said that “one would hope” all federal agencies are “trying to move in the same direction” on matters like Ligado. She questioned what DOD would like Congress and the FCC to do, noting the decision “seems clearly against the interests” of DOD and “commercial interests.” Deasy said NTIA should petition the FCC to revisit its decision. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said she believes the FCC “lingered” over the Ligado proceeding and that lawmakers “may not all agree with” the agency’s approval of the plan. She wished “we had somebody” from the FCC testifying on the rationale. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., suggested the situation was a “court challenge waiting to happen."

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, was among those who were more skeptical of the DOD’s claims. He noted the Ligado order is “one of the few “unanimous” major decisions the FCC’s had in recent years, which he believes shows “some serious thought went into” the commission’s decision. Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., noted the FCC’s unanimous approval of the plan and the backing it received from Barr and Pompeo. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., also expressed reservations, saying he wants testimony from the FCC and Ligado. "I would have really tough questions for them," he said.