Sen. Lee Introduces Government Spectrum Valuation Act

WASHINGTON - Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced the Government Spectrum Valuation Act Wednesday, a bill designed to estimate the value of electromagnetic spectrum assigned to each federal agency as a first step towards meeting the nation's spectrum needs.

'So much of the technology we depend on in modern life depends on radio frequency spectrum,' said Sen. Lee. 'Unfortunately, this fixed resource is becoming increasingly in demand and congested; and we do not currently have a way of making sure that federal spectrum is being efficiently allocated and managed. This bill will provide us with data that we need to better manage federal spectrum, and to better facilitate a strategy for operating our current technologies and future innovations.'

Specifically, the Government Spectrum Valuation Act would require over the next three years, and every three years thereafter, that the NTIA coordinate with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the FCC to estimate the value of electromagnetic spectrum between 3 kilohertz and 95 gigahertz for licensed or unlicensed uses that is assigned or allocated to each federal agency, as well as to report the value in the president's budget and each federal agency's statement.

Read the full bill text here.