President Trump on Friday hailed Senate Republican committee chairs for reaching a deal with Sens. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) on auctioning of government-owned spectrum.
Rounds and Fischer had held up Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” because they feared the federal sale of spectrum to the private sector would deprive the Defense Department of critical bandwidth used for radar.
Trump on Friday applauded GOP senators for working out their differences.
“Congratulations to Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Ted Cruz, Chairman of the Senate Armed Service Committee, Roger Wicker, and Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, Tom Cotton, for their amazing deal on Spectrum as posted last night,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
“This is serious power for American Leadership on 6G,” he said, referring to the next phase of broadband infrastructure. “We will have the World’s Greatest Networks, and ensure the Highest Level of National Security for future Generations of Americans.”
A source familiar with the deal said Rounds and Fischer got what they wanted, namely language in the bill to protect the Pentagon’s use of prime spectrum frequencies for the entire length of the government auction period.
Rounds and Fischer in separate statements said some of the details still need to be hammered out in legislative text.
The deal preserves the Defense Department’s use of the “lower three” 3.1 to 3.45 GHz band and 7.4 to 8.4 GHz, which would be exempted from general auction authority and the spectrum pipeline.
The wireless industry got the restoration of auction authority.
Rounds said Friday he appreciates the new national security protections and would continue to work on legislative language to align the broader bill with the “intent of the agreement,” signaling some details may still need to be worked out.
“I appreciate the national security protections, and we are working on modifications that will align it with the spirit and intent of the agreement. Negotiations are ongoing and we look forward to reaching a conclusion that will both supercharge 5G as well as protect our national security, including the capabilities necessary to build President Trump’s Golden Dome,” Rounds said in a statement.
Fischer in a statement said more work needs to be done to match the legislative text of the bill with the “agreement struck in principle.”
“As the legislative text reads now, this does not accurately reflect the agreement struck in principle, and we are still working to make additional changes to fully meet that agreement,” she said.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the ranking member on the Commerce Committee, slammed her Republican colleagues for “rushing to sell off spectrum” and “failing to fund” what she called “essential safety upgrades.”
Cantwell warned the Republican language in the budget reconciliation package would run ahead of work between the Federal Aviation Administration and wireless providers such as Verizon and AT&T to ensure that spectrum sales do not crowd out air-safety applications.
“At a moment when maintaining safe skies has never been more challenging, this proposal recklessly endangers national security and aviation safety by mandating spectrum auctions in the C-Band before new altimeter standards are even finalized, while providing zero resources to an already capacity-constrained FAA or to update vulnerable altimeters on DOD and government aircraft,” Cantwell said in a statement.
“By rushing to sell off spectrum and failing to fund these essential safety upgrades, we’re setting ourselves up for a catastrophic repeat of the 5G C-band debacle—except this time we risk grounding the armed forces as well,” she said.
Trump on Friday slammed Biden for failing to reach a deal on spectrum auctions during his term.
“Biden did nothing on Spectrum in four years but, thanks to ‘THE GREAT BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL,’ my Administration will beat all expectations, and show World the path forward!” he posted.
Updated at 9:24 p.m. EDT
