WASHINGTON-The Commerce Department last week missed key deadlines tied to the Bush spectrum plan, prompting further questions about the political handling and priority of a White House wireless initiative the administration previously touted as important to economic growth, national defense and homeland security.
At the top of the list, the Commerce Department-working through its National Telecommunications and Information Administration-failed last Wednesday to submit to President Bush a progress report on implementing 24 recommendations to improve spectrum management. The recommendations were delivered to the president in May, but the White House last week was at a loss to explain whether it was satisfied with them or had even signed off on the proposals.
The Department of Defense-the No. 1 government spectrum user whose needs for frequencies have increased due to military transformation-insists the two dozen recommendations still await Bush’s signature. Amid the confusion, NTIA said it is working to get the recommendations carried out.
The Commerce Department last week also missed a deadline to send the White House a plan to identify and implement incentives to promote more efficient use of federal government airwaves without compromising national and homeland security, critical infrastructure and government services.
Clyde Ensslin, an NTIA spokesman, said drafts of the progress report and incentives plan are under internal review in the Commerce Department. Ensslin said he could not say when the progress report would be completed or made public.
Nov. 30 was also the deadline for the Commerce Department to have compiled strategic spectrum plans from 15 federal agencies selected by the department. Ensslin refused to say how many agency spectrum plans had been received by the deadline, though there were indications that NTIA failed to secure all of the agencies’ plans needed to craft a federal strategic spectrum plan and ultimately a national strategic spectrum plan.
While NTIA struggles to deliver on the Bush spectrum initiative, other agencies are doing their part in a timely manner.
The Department of Homeland Security met the Nov. 30 deadline for submitting a “Spectrum Needs Plan” to the White House, said DHS spokeswoman Valerie Smith. The DHS plan addresses public-safety and continuity-in-government spectrum issues.
Smith declined to provide a copy of the report, saying the White House must decide whether to release the document. One industry source expressed concern about whether DHS’ Spectrum Needs Plan might seek to transfer private-sector spectrum to the federal government. If so, that would reverse a trend begun in the 1990s in which the Department of Defense and other federal agencies were forced to surrender frequencies for emerging commercial wireless technologies.
The Office of Management and Budget has a key role in the Bush spectrum initiative as well. In June, OMB provided guidance to federal agencies for improving capital planning and investment control procedures in order to identify spectrum requirements and the cost of investments in spectrum-dependent systems.
Federal agencies were to have completed those actions by Nov. 30.
OMB was vague about whether all the agencies that received guidance had come into compliance, saying only that progress was being made.
“Agencies have participated in this initiative consistent with the requirements of the November 2004 memorandum from the president, including incorporating capital planning and investment control procedures for spectrum-dependent programs and systems into their budget considerations,” said Alex Conant, an OMB spokesman. “OMB is working with the agencies to determine their resource requirements for these investments, and the one-year mark from the executive memorandum contains several milestones by which progress may be assessed. All agencies are committed to ensuring that the goals outlined by the president are realized.”
The Nov. 30 deadlines were set in the second of two Bush spectrum memoranda issued Nov. 30, 2004.
The missed deadlines and confusion over the handling of spectrum-management recommendations raise questions about NTIA leadership in shepherding the president’s spectrum initiative and whether White House officials-particularly those with the National Economic Council-have the expertise and drive to promote wireless and high technology.
Separate from improving U.S. spectrum management, which has become even more critical in an age of global commerce, the administration’s uneven treatment of Bush’s spectrum plan could unwittingly undermine the president’s signature goal of achieving universal and affordable broadband access in the United States by 2007. The United States ranks 14th globally in broadband penetration. Meantime, macro trends have wireless technology increasingly used for basic telephone service and computing in industrialized and developing markets alike.
