Yesterday, TechFreedom filed comments in response to the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NRPM) regarding Spectrum Abundance for Weird Space Stuff. TechFreedom supports the Commission’s efforts to provide much-needed spectrum for innovative space enterprises and commends its disciplined approach.

“The NPRM recognizes the magnitude of the problem and importance of this proceeding,” said James E. Dunstan, TechFreedom’s Senior Counsel. “Thirty years ago, Congress granted the FCC auction authority that defined the highest and best use of spectrum as how much someone was willing to pay the government, resulting in the reallocation and auction of substantial spectrum to terrestrial wireless services. Today, the exponentially growing need for commercial spectrum for space operations—not telecommunications services—is threatening to delay or destroy America’s commercial space industry.”

“The FCC is a spectrum agency, not a space operations agency,” continued Dunstan. “Just four years ago, the previous FCC issued a Notice of Inquiry as a first step in regulating in-space servicing, assembly, and manufacturing (ISAM). Yet the focus of that proceeding was on regulating space operations, not providing spectrum for ISAM. That approach exceeded the Commission’s statutory authority. In a Goldilocks moment, the present NPRM is just right. The emphasis is on finding spectrum to fuel America’s breakout onto the High Frontier, not seeking to devise rules for rendezvous proximity operations (RPO). As the Eighth Circuit recently found in striking down the prior FCC’s digital discrimination framework, in a post-Loper Bright world, agencies are not free to interpret their statutory authority as they see fit.”

“The NPRM proposes some short-term fixes that might provide sufficient spectrum for the next few years,” Dunstan concluded. “But more than figuring out how to tinker with a few MHz here and there, the Commission should be bold—establishing a new space telemetry and telecommand service (STTS) and allocating to it specific spectrum for space operators who are not also providing a telecommunications service. Further, working with NTIA, we must rethink how space spectrum can be allocated to best lead us forward, as America quickly transitions from a space-by-government to a space-by-government and commercial partner model of operations.”

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