Cooper, Turner File House Version of GPS, Satellite Bill

House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee Chairman Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., and ranking member Mike Turner, R-Ohio, filed the House version of the anti-Ligado Recognizing and Ensuring Taxpayer Access to Infrastructure Necessary (Retain) for GPS and Satellite Communications Act (S-2166) Thursday. Some lobbyists believe that portends a bid to attach it to the FY 2022 National Defense Authorization Act. The measure would require Ligado to pay costs of GPS users whose operations are hurt by its planned L-band operations (see 2106230050). The bill protects “critical” GPS and satellite communications “networks by ensuring that any costs caused by private sector interference to their frequencies is covered by the private sector,” Cooper said. The Keep GPS Working Coalition and other opponents of Ligado’s L-band plan hailed the bill’s House filing. The Retain GPS and Satellite Communications Act “would put the burden to pay where it belongs: on Ligado,” said the Satellite Safety Alliance. Ligado didn’t comment Friday. The Senate Armed Services Committee remained mum whether the panel attached S-2166’s text or other anti-Ligado language to the version of the FY 2022 NDAA it advanced last week. An executive summary said the measure increases funding for “cutting-edge research and prototyping activities at universities, small businesses, defense labs and industry” on 5G, artificial intelligence and other “critical” technologies. The measure includes an additional $264 million for DOD cybersecurity work. It mandates “the establishment of the microelectronics research network, originally established in the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors for America Act.”