Senate Eyes Adding Chips Bill to NDAA; Biden Signs Infrastructure Law

The Senate is likely to consider its own version of the House-passed FY 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (HR-4350) this week via a substitute version of the legislation from Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed, D-R.I., and “may add” the chamber-passed U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (S-1260) to the measure, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told senators Sunday. The House passed HR-4350 in September (see 2109240067) with language from the 911 Supporting Accurate Views of Emergency Services Act (HR-2351) and Promoting U.S. Wireless Leadership Act (HR-3003). Senators are vying to attach some other tech and telecom amendments to the measure, including dueling amendments on Ligado’s L-band plans.

President Joe Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act Monday, as expected (see 2111100081). Biden said before signing that it will make high-speed broadband “affordable everywhere in America” and provide good jobs “laying down those broadband lines.” It will mean “no parent should have to sit in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant again just so their child can use the internet to do their homework,” he said. Schumer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and other participants in the ceremony also invoked the measure’s connectivity money as an important component. Communications sector stakeholders attending the ceremony included NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield.

Biden named former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu (D) Sunday as White House infrastructure coordinator to oversee implementation of the law, which includes $65 billion for broadband. Biden issued an executive order Monday on the law, setting up the Infrastructure Implementation Task Force to carry it out. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo are among the task force members. The statute tasks NTIA with disbursing about $48 billion of the connectivity money.

“There seems to be fairly broad support” for attaching S-1260 to the NDAA because it “would enable … negotiation with the House” on the measure “to be completed alongside NDAA before the end of the year,” Schumer said in a letter to senators. S-1260 includes $52 billion to boost U.S. chipmaking and $1.5 billion to implement the Utilizing Strategic Allied Telecom Act (see 2106080074). The measure will bolster “U.S. domestic manufacturing and supply chains” and “help alleviate the supply chain challenges facing our small business and consumers on a daily basis, making its passage this year critical.” House leaders have been pushing to instead enact the National Science Foundation for the Future Act (HR-2225) and other measures that overlap with S-1260 (see 2106150078).

The proposed Senate anti-Ligado amendments to HR-4350 include one from Armed Services ranking member Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., that would expand a requirement in the FY 2021 NDAA that DOD assess potential monetary damages from harmful interference the company’s L-band usage use might cause. The amendment would require DOD to “work directly” with Ligado to “seek recovery” of damage costs. Inhofe filed the Recognizing and Ensuring Taxpayer Access to Infrastructure Necessary (Retain) for GPS and Satellite Communications Act (S-2166) earlier this year in a bid to seek reimbursement of damages for all potentially affected GPS users (see 2106230050).

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, wants to repeal language from the FY21 NDAA that bars DOD from signing or otherwise extending contracts with entities like Ligado that engage in commercial operations on the L band unless the defense secretary certifies those uses don’t cause interference to department GPS devices.

Other telecom amendments to the measure include one led by Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, to create an NTIA-based fund for broadband deployments and undersea cable landing stations in that state. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., wants to give state and local governments more control in determining the use of highway rights of way for broadband deployments. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., wants to attach language making it the sense of Congress that unserved areas should get priority for receiving connectivity money.

Tech amendments include a bid by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., to bar DOD use of TikTok. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., wants to ban the U.S. intelligence community from creating official accounts on TikTok and other foreign-owned social media platforms. Senate Homeland Security Committee ranking member Rob Portman, R-Ohio, seeks to establish a National Deepfake and Digital Provenance Task Force. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., wants to create a Technology Competitiveness Council, which the House jettisoned from HR-4350 prior to its passage.