CAGW Opposes Sale of Shared Spectrum in Budget Bill

WASHINGTON, June 2, 2025 – A conservative watchdog group warned Thursday that auctioning a shared-use public spectrum band could backfire, draining billions from expected federal revenue.

Citizens Against Government Waste called for the U.S. Senate to exempt the Citizens Broadband Radio Service band from auction under a new reconciliation bill, arguing that reimbursing current users on the band would sharply reduce $88 billion projected in auction revenue.

The House of Representatives passed H.R.1 on May 22. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” among other reallocations and revocations of federal funding, renews the Federal Communications Commission’s authority to auction licenses for the use of radio frequency spectrum and requires certain frequencies to be reallocated and auctioned off.

As written, the bill would include the CBRS band at 3.55-3.7 GigiaHertz (GHz), which is currently allocated under a shared-access model that allows commercial, federal, and general authorized users to operate on the same spectrum band.

CAGW vice president of policy and government affairs Deborah Collier called for the CBRS band to be added to the list of bands that cannot be auctioned off, which includes 3.1-3.45 GHz (used by the Department of Defence for radar systems), arguing that the cost of reimbursing the band’s current incumbents would reduce the anticipated $88 billion in spectrum auction revenue.

Under federal law, when spectrum is reallocated from federal or existing commercial use to exclusive licensed use, incumbent users are entitled to reimbursement for relocation or sharing costs.

If the government reallocates the CBRS band for exclusive use it may trigger reimbursement obligations for licensees who paid in the 2020 auction.

While the conservative-leaning CAGW opposes H.R.1’s sale of the CBRS for fiscal reasons, others including WISPA, a small wireless trade association, has opposed the sale of this public-use spectrum into an exclusive licensure for the sake of its wireless internet service provider members serving the public good. 

More than 60 percent of WISPA’s members use CBRS spectrum to deliver broadband service.