Tag Archives: Department of Commerce

Who Should Regulate Space?

Earlier this year, two ranking members of the House Science Committee sent a letter to the FCC that reminded the agency that it didn’t have any clear authority from Congress to regulate space safety, space traffic management, or other non-communication space issues. This letter was sent when it became clear that the FCC was considering sweeping changes to the regulation of satellite constellations.

Those same two members, Republican Brian Babin and Democrat Zoe Lofgren, sent another letter in July, asking the FCC to delay a vote on new satellite regulations. The FCC Commissioners went ahead and approved the new satellite rules in its July meeting.

The FCC has been addressing space issues for years. I’ve read the applications that SpaceX filed when it originally asked the FCC for the authority to launch its current satellite constellation. Those filings are full of specifications and descriptions of how Starlink can direct satellites to avoid collisions, and how the company will deorbit satellites when they are no longer needed. The new FCC regulations cover these same issues.

The letter from Congress raises an interesting question. If the FCC doesn’t regulate these issues, then what federal agency does? The answer to that question is unclear, and it looks like various agencies have some role in regulating satellites:

  • The Department of Commerce has developed the Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS) that issues satellite collision warnings.
  • The Department of Defense and Space Command also tracks space objects.
  • The FAA coordinates with airplanes to avoid areas near rocket launches.
  • The FCC is clearly in charge of the spectrum issues used to communicate between satellites and Earth.

Congress hasn’t specifically given any agency the authority to regulate orbital debris mitigation and deorbiting rules. This is a relatively new issue due to the large number of satellites in orbit, and the much larger number of planned satellites coming over the next decade. When the FCC took on this role with early communication satellites, it didn’t have any Congressional mandate to do so, because Congress hadn’t given that specific authority to anybody. But nobody was very concerned about this issue a decade ago, when there were 4,200 objects in orbit, including only 1,400 operational satellites.

It appears that the FCC has taken on this role in the regulatory vacuum. The House Science Committee had sent letters to the FCC making the same points to Chairman Ajit Pai in 2020 and Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel in 2022. That means that Congress has had years to debate the issue and decide who should regulate space safety. There have been discussions in Congress about assigning this role to the Department of Commerce, but no votes have been taken to do so.

Clearly somebody needs to regulate space safety. Scientists and space experts have been warning about the disaster that would ensue if there are major collisions of satellites that result in a cloud of debris. The satellite industry is growing to be a significant piece of the economy, and a major collision event could quickly cripple communications satellites for years.

I have to wonder if the FCC is the right place in the government to be tackling these issues today. Does the agency have enough space experts on staff to fully evaluate if satellite companies are taking the right precautions? Does any federal agency? There will be a lot of finger-pointing if a collision disaster happens, but it seems like the only place to point the finger would be Congress.

BEAD and the Political Calendar

We don’t need any more delays in the BEAD grant process, but there are potential delays on the horizon due to the political calendar. The delays in the BEAD grant process have felt interminable by rural folks hoping for better broadband. We are approaching the three year anniversary of the passage of the IIJA legislation that created the grant program, and there hasn’t yet been a dollar of grant funding.

What do I mean by political calendar? There is going to be a new president in the White House, and that means a change in many of the people who run various cabinets and agencies. This means a new Secretary of Commerce, the agency that sits atop the NTIA. It could mean a new head of the NTIA, which is run by an Assistant Secretary of Commerce. Changes could go a lot deeper, because it’s not unusual for a number of lower-level staff at an agency like the NTIA to leave when their appointed bosses leave.

This matters because NTIA will still play an active role in the BEAD grant process next year. The NTIA must approve the grant awards made for each State. In fact, no money will flow to grant winners until the NTIA blesses the entire pile of grants that are being proposed to be awarded by each State Broadband Office. BEAD is not like other grants where a Broadband Office can start making awards to ISPs as it approves each grant. A Broadband Office must find a solution for every unserved home, then package a detailed report to the NTIA about the grant award process. Money doesn’t flow to any grant winner until NTIA blesses all of the grants in a state. It’s also possible that the NTIA will review grant contracts with grant winners – or at least the template a state plans to use.

Changing people means disruptions at the NTIA. It could easily take much of next year to replace empty positions. During the interim, the responsibilities for keeping BEAD moving will fall to whoever is temporarily in charge at the NTIA. That could mean one of two things – a temporary head of NTIA might decide to rubber stamp everything States are doing, or they could take a cautious approach to not make any mistakes.

There could be an even bigger problem if the Republicans win the White House. Republican Senators have been complaining over the last few years that the NTIA has reached too far with some of its BEAD policies. A letter from Senator John Thune captures most of the issues. He says the NTIA has gone too far with many labor requirements. He says that BEAD rules incorrectly stress giving grants to government-owned networks. He says that the BEAD are not technology-neutral, and stress fiber over other acceptable technologies. The area of biggest unhappiness with BEAD is that State BEAD rules are pushing for low rates, which goes against the language in the legislation. He also complains that BEAD asks applicants to discuss how their proposals account for climate change – something that was not in the legislation. And finally, he thinks the NTIA should be more open to granting waivers from Buy American rules if that speeds up the construction process. I’ve heard many of these complaints from ISPs.

It’s not hard to imagine a Republican administration putting the BEAD grant process on hold until at least some of these issues are addressed. And it’s not hard to imagine that any pause due to politics could add a ton of time to the BEAD process.

There have also been rumblings from some Republicans about cutting off any unspent stimulus funding for infrastructure since they blame inflation on excess government spending. Improving broadband might be safe since better broadband is a popular issue in red states and the support for rural broadband has been largely non-partisan. However, it’s not impossible that unspent BEAD money could get slashed or curtailed if there is a larger move to cut government spending.

All of this could have been avoided if BEAD grants had been awarded within the three years since passage of the IIJA. But the glacial pace of administering BEAD has pushed the program into the middle of the normal and expected political process.