FCC GOP Commissioner Endorses Satellite Streamlining Bill

WASHINGTON, December 12, 2022 – As Congress scrambles to negotiate an end-of-year omnibus, Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Nathan Simington on Thursday touted technical potential of satellite broadband and endorsed a bill that would streamline satellite permitting.

The bipartisan Satellite and Telecommunications Streamlining Act, introduced Thursday with the Secure Space Act, would ease the FCC’s permitting process for the rapidly growing satellite industry. It’s companion bill bars the agency from authorizing non-geostationary satellites from entities that also offer products found on the “covered list,” which identifies equipment and services that pose “unacceptable” risks to national security.

“American companies are leading the way in the space economy revolution, and Congress has recognized that we must act quickly to secure America’s role as the home to the most innovative new companies in the emerging launch and satellite sectors,” said Simington, an outspoken proponent of satellite broadband, in a statement. “There is an insatiable hunger for low-latency, high-bandwidth broadband connections in every corner of the U.S. that satellite broadband providers are racing to feed,” he added.

The junior Republican-appointed commissioner in September criticized the FCC’s revocation of a $885 million, Rural Digital Opportunity Fund award to satellite-broadband provider Starlink. Commissioner Brendan Carr also criticized the flip-flop. At the end of September, Simington, Carr, and their colleagues unanimously adopted an order that required the removal of satellite debris from space, and in November, Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced the inception of a dedicated space bureau at the agency.

Outside the FCC, many experts say current satellite broadband is technologically incapable of providing reliable broadband, an assessment echoed by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration in its guidelines for the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment fund.

Will bipartisan broadband bills beat the buzzer?

The Broadband Grant Tax Treatment Act, a bill that would make non-taxable broadband grants from the BEAD program and the American Rescue Plan Act, may yet become law by year’s end, spokespeople for Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Penn., told Broadband Breakfast Monday.

And if the bill isn’t passed this month, the spokespeople said, each legislator plans to advance it in the 118th Congress.