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Rep Turner Opening Statement for Hearing on "Sustaining GPS for National Security"Sep 15, 2011 (Congressional Documents and Publications/ContentWorks via COMTEX) -- September 15, 2011 Contact: Claude Chafin or John Noonan 202-226-3988 Turner Opening Statement for Hearing on "Sustaining GPS for National Security" Washington, D.C.-- U.S. Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH), the chairman of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, today released the following opening statement for the committee's hearing entitled "Sustaining GPS for National Security http://armedservices.house.gov/index.cfm/hearings-display'ContentRecordid=d575d7c8-6b04-487b-aedb-412e15fa82c4." "Good morning. I want to welcome everyone to the Strategic Forces Subcommittee's hearing on Sustaining GPS for National Security. "I was planning to make the usual statement of appreciation to the witnesses for their appearance here today, and to those witnesses who took this issue seriously enough to be here - General Shelton, Ms. Takai, Mr. Nebbia, Mr. Russo and Mr. Knapp - I do thank you for your time and testimony. "That said, I have the unfortunate responsibility to inform the subcommittee that Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Genachowski refused to appear today. I must also make clear that I consider the Chairman's failure to show up today to be an affront to the House Armed Services Committee. Further, it appears to be symptomatic of a disregard by the Chairman to the consequences of the FCC's January 26 waiver to LightSquared. I trust Chairman Genachowski is doing something very important this morning if he couldn't be here to discuss the significant harm to national security that may result from the FCC's action on January 26th of this year. "I appreciate that the Chairman is apparently willing to provide personal responses to written Questions for the Record submitted by this subcommittee, according to staff. But the Chairman's priority should be the same as the subcommittee's: "Sustaining GPS for National Security." "With that unpleasantness out of the way, I wish to introduce and express appreciation to the witnesses who are here today: * General William Shelton, Commander of Air Force Space Command - I note this is General Shelton's second appearance before this subcommittee in as many weeks...either the General really likes us or he's working to accumulate his frequent flier miles; * Ms. Teresa Takai, Chief Information Officer, Department of Defense; * Mr. Karl Nebbia, Associate Administrator, Office of Spectrum Management, National Telecommunications and Information Administration; and, * Mr. Anthony Russo, National Coordination Office, Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Training, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. * Mr. Julius Knapp, chief of the Federal Communications Commission http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FederalCommunicationsCommission 's Office of Engineering Technology - Mr. Knapp, I want to thank you for being here and I want to be clear that neither I nor my colleagues have anything other than gratitude for your service at the FCC; our concerns are with Chairman Genachowski. "Thank you all for appearing before this subcommittee this morning. "Why are we here this morning" General Shelton, you might remember this question. It was asked by a member of the Subcommittee during the classified briefing you provided all of us last week on LightSquared-GPS test results. "A brief recap of how we got here. On January 26th of this year, the FCC granted a conditional waiver of its own rules allowing LightSquared to establish a terrestrial broadband network and be freed of certain gating requirements which were designed to keep any potential terrestrial service from overwhelming the satellite spectrum LightSquared held. "As we now know, this network would operate with over 40,000 base stations operating at a frequency adjacent to that long used by the Global Position System (GPS), at almost 5 billion times the power of the GPS system. "The Chairman of the FCC knew there were concerns about the proposed waiver for LightSquared, as he received a letter from Deputy Secretary of Defense Bill Lynn on January 12, two weeks before the waiver was issued. The Deputy Secretary wrote to Mr. Genachowski that "there is strong potential for interference to these critical National Security Space Systems" referencing GPS, Inmarsat terminals, and Aeronautical Mobile Telemetry operations. This letter also asked for Chairman Genachowski's "personal attention on this matter." "Without objection, this letter will be made a part of the record. "We also know National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Assistant Secretary Lawrence Strickling wrote to Chairman Genachowski recommending that the FCC not go forward with the LightSquared waiver request. "Many have observed that the FCC followed an irregular process on the LightSquared waiver. "First, the National Legal and Policy Center stated in a February 2, 2011 letter to the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that, "over the course of the past year, a series of odd decisions, questionable meetings and procedural anomalies at the Federal Communications Commission and White House highlight Mr. Falcone's growing influence in the hallways of government." Mr. Falcone is the CEO of the hedge fund, Harbinger Capital Partners, which owns LightSquared. "Without objection, this letter will be made a part of the record. "Additionally, in a March letter to Chairman Genachowski, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, joined by the Deputy Secretary of Transportation noted that "the DoD and DoT were not sufficiently included in the development of the LightSquared initial work plan and its key miletones." This letter again sought the FCC Chairman's personal attention. "Without objection, this letter will be made a part of the record. "And just yesterday, the Center for Public Integrity released a report detailing, and I quote, "Emails show wireless firm's communications with White House as campaign donations were made." In my capacity as a member of the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, I will be asking Chairman Issa and Ranking Member Towns to promptly investigate this matter. "We cannot afford to have federal telecommunications policy, especially where it affects national security, to be made in the same way that the White House parceled out a half billion dollars in loan guarantees to the failed Solyndra Corporation, a large political campaign contributor of the President. "While there is clearly a concern about how the FCC has conducted this process, those concerns are within the purview of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. "Also outside the scope of today's hearing, but of significant concern nontheless, is the impact to GPS receiver manufacturers like Trimble Navigation in my home town of Dayton, Ohio, which manufacturers GPS receivers for the agriculture sector and heavy machinery producers like Caterpillar. "But this subcommittee's main purview is national security, and the national security consequences of the LightSquared network are significant. As I mentioned, the concern in this case is that LightSquared's proposed network of 40,000 base stations around the U.S., which broadcast at an adjacent signal frequency to the signal used by the GPS system, but at five billion times the signal strength, will render useless the DOD's GPS receivers. "General Shelton, Commander of Air Force Space Command, informed the HASC-Strategic Forces Subcommittee members in last week's classified briefing that "tests show LightSquared signal causes significant interference to military GPS." "Simply put, if the FCC gives LightSquared the final go ahead to build out its network, I fear the DOD's training activities in the United States would come to an end. This cannot be allowed to happen. As the members of the House Armed Services Committee know, before U.S. troops are deployed, they conduct extensive real-world training, which includes use of GPS for orienteering of U.S. forces, locating friendly forces, locating enemy forces, conducting search-and-rescue activities, targeting of precision-guided ordnance, and calling in close air support. None of these activities are possible without DOD's high-precision GPS receivers, which would be most affected by the LightSquared network. "As a Member of Congress, I can think of no higher responsibility than to make sure U.S. military forces are fully trained and equipped before they are deployed overseas to Afghanistan, Iraq, or any place in harm's way. Likewise, and this is something in all of our minds this close to the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the United States, significant harmful interference to the GPS system would be a tremendous liability to our defense of the homeland. General Shelton, I recall you making this point last week. "The Armed Services Committee's position as articulated by the Turner-Sanchez amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2012 is that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) should not grant LightSquared final approval on the conditional waiver granted to the company on January 26, 2011 until the Commission has dealt with potential harmful interference to the DOD's GPS receivers. LightSquared itself has no apparent objection to this provision. "LightSquared has been making a vigorous case for its $4 billion investment in its proposed network build-out of a new nationwide broadband service. That it is a bipartisan policy objective to encourage more nationwide broadband service and more competition is not in dispute... at least not before the Armed Services Committee. "The question for this subcommittee today is how to evaluate the harm identified by the Department of Defense to its $34 billion investment in GPS, GPS ground stations, and DOD high-precision military GPS receivers. Again, it is more important than money...this is about our warfighters who rely on this technology for safety and their technological edge against adversaries. "And let me state that harm to GPS once again very clearly: "tests show LightSquared signal causes significant interference to military GPS. "As my colleagues know by now, on Tuesday of this week, the FCC apparently came to the same conclusion, and issued a Public Notice that the "potential for harmful interference" meant that "additional targeted testing is needed." I consider that the understatement of this decade. But, we need to know what this Public Notice actually means for DOD GPS users; this may very well be an effort to push matters off by a few months under the assumption Congress will be distracted by then. I look forward to the testimony of the witnesses to get to the bottom of this matter. " |