Everyone Agrees GPS Is Vulnerable. So, Why Are Some in Washington Opposed to Even Exploring Solutions?

Last week’s House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee hearing on Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) capabilities demonstrated that there’s a broad bipartisan consensus around the idea that America’s reliance on GPS alone has created a serious economic and national security risk.

Both Republicans and Democrats were in universal bipartisan agreement. And nearly all the witnesses at the hearing echoed that concern.

Chairman Richard Hudson (R-NC) warned that GPS “has been the source of PNT for the United States for decades,” but “a catastrophic failure of GPS as a result of adversary spoofing or jamming would be devastating to our economy. The development and adoption of complementary PNT services is a bipartisan priority.” Ranking Member Doris Matsui (D-CA) agreed, saying a serious attack could be “catastrophic and cause billions of dollars of damage.” Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA) stressed that PNT “touches all facets of our society and of our lives.” whereas Rep. Erin Houchin (R-IN) described GPS as the “invisible infrastructure underneath our entire economy.”

Not a single member of Congress made the case that America is better off without a ground-based backup to provide needed layers of PNT resilience. In fact, only one witness seemed reluctant to fully acknowledge the magnitude of the problem: GPS Innovation Alliance Executive Director Lisa Dyer. While nearly everyone else focused on the growing threats of jamming, spoofing, and the increasing risks to GPS posed by adversaries such as China and Russia, Dyer consistently steered the conversation back toward investing more in GPS and promoting other space-based alternatives rather than embracing the need for at least one ground-based system to serve as a backup. 

Ms. Dyer’s point was understandable, as she was there representing the interests of GPS. But fortunately, Congress represents the American people. While she repeatedly emphasized that GPS is available “99.99%” of the time, it downplayed the growing real-world consequences of GPS jamming and spoofing in places like the Middle East and the Baltic, where disruptions are already wreaking havoc on air travel, consumer applications, precision farming, and national security operations. Even here at home, Americans have dealt with GPS attacks at airports and space weather events that have impacted farmers across the Midwest:

Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA): “We need to modernize GPS, we need to protect it from interference, we need to examine complementary technologies, including terrestrial systems and broadcast positioning systems without prematurely picking winners or forcing consumers into a rush transition. Ms. Dyer, I want to ask you from a national security perspective, what is the most urgent?”

Lisa Dyer: “I believe addressing the jamming and spoofing issue is an important element. One element of that is enforcing existing laws that Congress put in place to prevent harmful interference to authorized radio communications. The FCC could use additional resources to focus on that.”

At the Bull Moose Project, we’ve long contended that our country’s near-total reliance on a single space-based technology poses a dangerous risk, and we were pleased to see the Committee and most witnesses agree.

For most of the hearing, the debate was not about whether America needs a backup to GPS. The debate was about where those solutions should come from. Several witnesses opposed to one company’s solution to provide a complement and backup via 5G advanced a curious argument: yes, GPS is vulnerable; yes, America needs complementary and backup systems; yes, China and Russia have already built terrestrial alternatives. But whatever solution emerges, it shouldn't mean modernizing the lower 900 MHz band as NextNav has proposed at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

But before we examine the weaknesses of opponents' arguments regarding a 5G-based backup to GPS, it’s important to acknowledge that there was universal agreement that these technical questions about coexistence should be adjudicated by the expert agency, not in the halls of Congress:

Guthrie:  I think we all agree, if you can say, if you disagree with me on this, I won't go down, make everybody answer, but that the FCC and the NTI NTIA are the expert agencies with the technical expertise and statutory authority over spectrum management decisions, and also think we all agree that the FCC should consider public commercial stakeholders, including both licensed and unlicensed users, and the federal agency input as it decides spectrum policy and other items before the commission. So, I guess my question I'd like for each of you to answer to get to is with FCC and the NTA having the technical ability and having to take all into account, should Congress make technical decisions, technical decisions about spectrum policy through the appropriations process? And Ms. Dyer, you can go first... 

Dyer: No, I will say, though, that when you fund a system like GPS through the appropriations committee, you are supporting the spectrum the GPS uses.

Sorond: No.

Harold Feld: No.

Grossman: Chairman Guthrie, the Energy and Commerce Committee in the House is has primary oversight of the FCC, and this is this hearing is an example of the committee's leadership on spectrum policy issues.

Guthrie: So, you think that through the appropriations process we should regulate spectrum? The problem is that we have challenges on the spectrum in a lot of ways. We had a lot of work on the Defense Act, I mean, on the One Big Beautiful Bill in defense areas, and so forth. And so we sit down and work those things out through the process, and now we're, and so, my question, though, do you think that should be handled through the appropriations process, or like you said, these hearings, and through the technical agencies we delegate the authority to.

Grossman: Chairman Guthrie, spectrum policy in the House should be handled in this committee in the House Energy and Commerce.

Harold Feld of Public Knowledge argued for more government-funded alternatives, including adopting solutions rooted in World War II-era tech, as the Chinese Communist Party has done:

Harold Feld: “The question is, to what extent can we in the United States build into terrestrial, such as the E-Loran system, in order to publicly fund alternatives to threats to satellite GPS.”

But waiting on government-funded GPS alternatives is exactly how America became so vulnerable in the first place. We’ve argued that the better path forward is to leapfrog China through American private-sector innovation, rather than copying Beijing’s last move with taxpayer-funded legacy technology.

CTA's David Grossman repeatedly emphasized the importance of protecting unlicensed users in the 900 MHz band and pointed to dozens of other possible technologies. Both Public Knowledge and CTA agreed that a GPS backup was urgently needed, but showed no urgency in examining the viability of near-term alternatives. While both openly admitted that the FCC was the appropriate agency to examine coexistence, that didn’t stop either from dismissing the NextNav petition without a shred of evidence of real-world interference.

One of the most revealing moments of the hearing came when Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA) pressed witnesses on whether NextNav’s existing operations had actually produced interference complaints.

NextNav’s Mariam Sorond testified that NextNav has been transmitting live 5G signals in the band since January without issue. Griffith then turned directly to Grossman and asked a straightforward question: if these operations pose such a catastrophic threat, where are the complaints?

Grossman appeared flummoxed.

Rather than identifying documented real-world interference complaints, he pivoted back to concerns about engineering studies and testing methodologies. When pressed again, he admitted he had no evidence of actual harmful interference:

Griffith: I was intrigued with some of the discussion Miss Soran brought up about their using some more high-powered 900 MHz and low-power things, and that there was not interference. I understood your testimony, correct? There were no complaints about interference. I understood that correctly, did I not? 

Sorond: That is correct, Congressman. 

Griffith: All right, so now I go to Mr. Grossman because I want to get, you know, both sides of the story. Do you have any complaints or have you heard of complaints where they are using where they're using the higher power that people are running into problems, whether it be the medical side or something as simple as a garage door opener? 

Groosman: Congressman, yes, we have heard concerns. So the tests that NextNav refers to, or the two that I'm aware of. I reviewed YouTube videos that the company posted on their site showing what they claimed to be coexistence with RFID tags, and then another video, which showed, or claimed, coexistence with smoke detectors, and I believe one other device. These were one-minute-long videos each. We have not seen any accompanying technical data to go along with those tests. We would, our engineers of our companies, would welcome...

Griffith: You question their testing, but I guess my question would be is have you in those areas where they are doing testing or where they've used this... have you had any specific complaints? 

Grossman: Well as I understand the tests occured on the rooftop of a building, so they they were an isolated test with specific devices. We just don't have a lot of details about the technical parameters by which those tests occurred.

Griffith: And I'm going to probably run out of time but is there any way to buffer the systems so that if you're using the higher powered ones, the lower powered ones can be buffered from interference? 

Grossman: We're not aware of that. There have been countless technical tests submitted into the record. 

Griffith: Ms. Sorond? 

Sorond: Thank you for the opportunity to clarify. We're transmitting live. What we demo is very different. We've been transmitting live since January on 5G. We've been transmitting for decades on our regular technology and we've not had any complaints of interference.

Griffith: Buffering? I've got 5 seconds. Buffering? 

Sorond: Coexistence is possible today. You don't need any technology for buffering. 

That exchange cuts to the core of the debate now unfolding before the FCC.

Opponents continue to insist that 5G operations in the lower 900 MHz band would be disastrous. Yet when asked whether real-world deployments have actually generated complaints, the conversation quickly shifts back to hypothetical scenarios and demands for delay.

This is precisely why the FCC’s process matters.

As Chairman Guthrie observed during the hearing, these are “engineering problems that can and should be addressed by technical experts.” The purpose of an FCC proceeding is not to predetermine the outcome. It is to examine the evidence, test competing claims, and determine whether coexistence is possible.

That is exactly what the FCC’s Notice of Inquiry on PNT is designed to do, and why it's urgent that the FCC moves towards a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. The Commission has a long track record of tackling complex spectrum proceedings and never gets it wrong.

America faces a serious GPS resilience problem. Nearly every witness at the hearing agreed on that point.

The real question is whether Washington is willing to seriously evaluate potential solutions, or whether entrenched interests can continue to rely on hypothetical worst-case scenarios to scare policymakers into shutting down the process before the FCC has a chance to evaluate the evidence.