Sponsors
The bill increases transparency and regular market information about government-held spectrum to improve economic allocation and oversight, but creates pressure to monetize spectrum and raises risks of exposing sensitive operations — trading fiscal transparency and potential economic gains against operational and security priorities.
Federal agencies will include NTIA's spectrum value estimates in their budgets, increasing transparency about government-held spectrum and enabling better-informed resource allocation decisions.
Industry, investors, and Congress will gain access to public disclosure of valuation methodologies (with narrow exceptions), helping market participants and policymakers understand spectrum commercial value and make better decisions.
Taxpayers, investors, and the telecom market will receive regular (every three years by band) spectrum value estimates, creating predictable information that can support more efficient spectrum reallocation or auctions and potentially increase economic returns from commercial use.
Federal employees and agencies will face pressure to justify spectrum holdings in monetary terms, which could push reallocations toward commercial use and constrain mission-critical operations and services.
Law enforcement and national security operations could be exposed if public valuations and supporting information are not perfectly redacted, risking operational security and public safety.
Policymakers and taxpayers may be misled if 'dynamic scoring' and commercial-market valuations overstate potential auction revenue, incentivizing revenue-driven policy choices over mission needs and continuity of services.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires NTIA (with FCC and OMB) to estimate and publish the commercial value of federal-held spectrum across 3 kHz–95 GHz and requires agencies to report those estimates in budget and financial filings.
Requires the NTIA, working with the FCC and OMB, to estimate the market value if reallocated of all electromagnetic spectrum held by federal entities across 3 kHz–95 GHz and to publish the methods and results (with classified or sensitive exceptions). Agencies must include the latest NTIA estimate of their assigned spectrum value in presidential budget submissions and annual financial statements; NTIA must deliver initial estimates on a phased schedule (within 1–3 years) and update them every three years thereafter.
Introduced February 27, 2025 by Mike Lee · Last progress February 27, 2025