28. Federal Communications Commission · Minor · Needs Congress
Establish an interagency spectrum coordination process
Printed page 854 28. Federal Communications Commission
“The White House should work with Congress to establish a spectrum coordination process that will work for both commercial and federal users.”
What has happened
- Partially done
Winning the 6G Race operationalized the interagency half of that process for the first band: NTIA studies relocation of the federal incumbents in 7.125-7.4 GHz in consultation with those incumbents, must demonstrate that the relocation will not materially impair national security missions or electric grid operations as identified by the Secretary of War and the Director of National Intelligence, and reports to the President through the economic, science and national security advisers. Satellite telemetry uplink and radio astronomy sites are carved out.
- Partially done
Congress enacted part of the ask in section 40002 of P.L. 119-21, at the administration's request and in its own reconciliation bill. The section builds a federal-commercial process rather than a one-off transfer: NTIA identifies federal spectrum for reallocation "in consultation with the Commission"; it must first determine the feasibility of each reallocation and assess relocation or sharing costs; and the President may modify or withdraw any frequency proposed for reallocation up to 60 days before an auction if national security requires it. Two bands are excluded outright. $50 million is appropriated to NTIA for the analysis and for a biennial report valuing all federal spectrum. What it is not is a standing mechanism for the kind of dispute the Quote has in mind — the FCC-FAA 5G altimeter clash — outside the reallocation pipeline.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
- Leveled on the Requires-Congress ladder as enacted in part. The alternative reading — that a band-by-band reallocation pipeline is not “a spectrum coordination process” and the item should sit at not started — is raised for the ticket 26 consistency pass.
- Bills that would establish a standing process on their own terms have gone nowhere, so none of them moves the rung: H.R. 651 Spectrum Pipeline Act of 2025 (referred 2025-01-23), H.R. 2171 Spectrum Coordination Act (referred 2025-03-18), S. 792 Government Spectrum Valuation Act, S. 794 (federal spectrum audit) and S. 2869 Federal Government Spectrum Inventory Act (all read twice and referred).
- NTIA launched Spectrum.gov on 2026-05-07 as a single hub for federal spectrum policy and 6G pipeline progress. A transparency measure rather than a coordination mechanism, so it is noted rather than leveled; it is also how Winning the 6G Race was found.
- Shares its instruments with #2207, which reads the same statute and memorandum for what they free rather than for how they coordinate.
- Action
- create
- Object
- Federal spectrum coordination process
- ID
- 2208