National Telecommunications and Information Administration Reauthorization Act of 2024

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to express concerns with H.R. 4510, the National Telecommunications and Information Reauthorization Act of 2024.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, or NTIA, is a critical agency within the Department of Commerce that works across the Federal government to develop telecommunications and information policy. It also serves an important role as the voice of the federal government in spectrum management issues and for regulatory processes considered at the Federal Communications Commission. Congress should support this agency and give it the resources and authorities it needs to fulfill its mission. However, H.R. 4510 would upend the interagency spectrum management process. Specifically, the Act would restrict the input FCC can consider from Federal agencies, and it would designate NTIA as the primary laboratory for spectrum studies for the whole federal government rather than leveraging each agency's unique expertise and technical contributions as occurs under the existing interagency approach. Further, the bill would waste taxpayer dollars by unnecessarily duplicating activities already authorized by Congress.

Unfortunately, there are two main areas in which this bill would cause a significant disruption to the interagency process related to spectrum management: First, rather than ensuring more informed spectrum decision-making, the bill explicitly directs the FCC not to consider any technical, procedural, or policy concerns of a federal entity regarding a spectrum action unless such concerns are publicly filed by the NTIA. I appreciate that the bill text considered by the House today does reflect feedback from various Committees for the consideration of classified information in the spectrum management process. However, allowing for consideration of classified information is not enough to overcome the significant limitations this bill would place on the interagency spectrum management process. Currently, agencies routinely participate in coordination and communication with one another through the interagency process, which was recently bolstered through a new Memorandum of Understanding. A significant amount of this communication is informal. Some of this communication is reliant on information that is proprietary, pre-decisional, controlled unclassified, or otherwise sensitive. Restricting interagency feedback to only fully public or fully classified information misses a litany of relevant data and would hinder the federal government's ability to adequately protect spectrum allocated for critical national security, safety, weather forecasting, and scientific services. This would also create inefficiencies that threaten federal agencies' abilities to carry out their own statutory missions.

Second, H.R. 4510 would authorize the Institute of Telecommunications Science (ITS) and place it over other federal science agencies. ITS is a wonderful research laboratory that does important work, and Congress should authorize it. However, the bill goes further, and designates ITS to be the primary laboratory for the entire executive branch on spectrum management and interference. This would elevate ITS, an important tool for broad-application spectrum R&D, over the many specialized spectrum labs and testbeds throughout the federal scientific enterprise. Some federal mission agencies bring unique and critical expertise. For example. NASA's understanding of spectrum coordination and interference in space missions is unparalleled, and NTIA relies on NASA for such studies. We should be seeking to leverage Federal agency expertise wherever it exists, not undermining or duplicating it.

The Science Committee has consistently voiced the need for a more coordinated, whole-of-government approach to spectrum management policy. We need robust, informed technical analyses to support evidence-based policy decisions, especially in the face of ever- increasing demands on radiofrequency spectrum. The FCC, NTIA, and federal incumbent spectrum users have made meaningful progress in recent years to update and strengthen the interagency process to manage spectrum in a more effective and collaborative manner. By limiting the information that the FCC may consider and elevating one NTIA capability, the ITS, over the application-specific expertise in the rest of the federal government. H.R. 4510 would run roughshod over the interagency spectrum management process and undo such progress.

Unfortunately, my concerns about H.R. 4510 go beyond just the spectrum provisions. The NTIA was originally part of its sister agency, NIST. Since Congress established NTIA as its own agency in 1978, the two agencies have carried out complementary but distinct areas of work. NIST serves as an independent, unbiased arbiter of trusted measurements and standards and NTIA has regulatory responsibilities. While the two agencies often work together, this bill would expand the NTIA's mission and blur the lines between them, especially on issues related to cybersecurity. For example, Congress authorized NIST, in collaboration with CISA, to conduct a cybersecurity literacy program for the public in the Cybersecurity Enhancements Act of 2014. H.R. 4510 would directly duplicate, at NTIA, those ongoing efforts underway at NIST. The intent of these provisions is unclear, and merits further vetting and input from DOC. There are additional provisions in the bill that implicate yet other agencies outside of the Department of Commerce. For example, the bill would direct the NTIA to oversee public safety studies authored by FEMA and duplicate DHS's information technology supply chain security programs.

An earlier version of this bill mandated a fundamental change in how we do spectrum management by requiring the adoption of incumbent informing capability (IIC), a system that would allow for time-based spectrum sharing between incumbent mission agencies and commercial users. I appreciate the bill sponsors' decision to remove this provision from the text we are voting on today. Such a requirement would be premature. While advanced spectrum sharing capabilities would hopefully one day be widely deployed to support flexible spectrum usage, IIC is an untried, untested system that, if executed incorrectly or inefficiently, could harm agencies' missions, including those critical to safety and scientific advancement. The 2023 National Spectrum Strategy rightly focuses on initial steps, best practices, and information gathering that would be required to support a viable IIC.

It is my hope that these concerns can be addressed as the bill moves through the legislative process.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source