Former NTIA Officials to Recommend Congress Make Tweaks in NTIA Reauthorization

"Even beyond the airwaves, NTIA will play a crucial role in America’s future infrastructure plan, one that must include a significant investment in broadband," House Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., expects to say in his opening statement. "I have seen plans that allocate $20 billion or more to spur broadband deployment. The BroadbandUSA office at NTIA will certainly be a critical part of making sure that money gets spent responsibly." Pallone will warn about funding: "Given those returns and that responsibility, this committee has a duty to fulfill NTIA’s full budget request of $50 million. Authorizations should be ceilings, not floors. And we shouldn’t let senseless cut-go [cut-as-you-go] rules get in the way of this important agency’s work."

The NTIA administrator role should be on the level of an undersecretary rather than an assistant secretary as it is now, Meredith Baker, former acting administrator and current CTIA president, will testify. “A stronger NTIA Administrator will be a more successful arbiter of ... private and public spectrum needs.” The agency requires the right prominence and resources, she said. Congress “can take steps to further enhance this system” of the Spectrum Relocation Fund and “encourage NTIA to make greater use of the tools NTIA already possesses to make additional spectrum available,” she will recommend. Lawmakers “should encourage NTIA to find new ways to use the ITS [Institute for Telecommunication Sciences] and determine if there are other tools that would be helpful in the exercise of examining new federal bands of spectrum for commercial use,” she is to say. Baker will also suggest better transparency tools “to hold agencies accountable for their spectrum use and needs,” which she believes would simplify the need for congressional oversight.

The agency “is well-positioned to manage any grants or other funding that would promote broadband access and adoption,” Anna Gomez, former acting administrator now with Wiley Rein, will advise lawmakers. “Any new program would benefit from the expertise and experiences NTIA staff developed while managing BTOP [Broadband Technology Opportunities Program stimulus grants].” Her testimony will point to the many lawmaker statements that broadband should be part of any infrastructure proposal (see 1702010064). President Donald Trump has said he wants an infrastructure package of up to $1 trillion, without releasing any specific plan. Gomez largely plans to say NTIA should continue as is and retain an important coordinating role. “NTIA can spearhead a coordinated federal policy to encourage the growth and development of the IoT,” Gomez will say. “Myriad agencies have oversight over different components or uses of IoT devices. IoT implicates spectrum policy, cybersecurity, and privacy concerns, among other issues.”

Former Administrator John Kneuer will testify about the “limits to NTIA’s authority,” with a current statutory environment leaving it “beyond NTIA’s authority to dictate to other Cabinet Departments how they should allocate their spectrum and capital resources.” Kneuer, who now consults and sits on the board of Globalstar, will point to a section meriting “potential clarification” in reauthorization legislation. Under existing law, NTIA is authorized to “advise the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (‘OMB’) on the development of policies relating to the procurement and management of Federal telecommunications systems,” he is to say. “In the past this authority has been effective in combining NTIA’s expertise with OMB’s government-wide authority to promote spectrum efficiencies in government spectrum use. I believe there is untapped potential in this or similar authority to achieve further efficiencies to the benefit of both the private sector and the federal government.”

The Senate hasn't prioritized NTIA reauthorization but would be open to what the House produces, said Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D. “We’re following how that hearing goes and what they come up, if they want to do a reauth or send it over here, we’ll look for ways to package it with all our stuff,” Thune said in an interview Wednesday.

The House GOP memo highlighted spectrum management, public safety communications and cybersecurity as key topics for the hearing. The Democratic memo, released Tuesday, included sections discussing NTIA’s broadband programs, FirstNet and its multistakeholder processes.