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Signed budget includes full GPS funding, except for $2M IIF reduction

December 16, 2015  - By
Image: GPS World

On Nov. 25, 2015, President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2016, after vetoing a previous version. The enacted NDAA complies with the two-year budget agreement, which called for a reduction in defense spending.

The act reduces the GPS IIF line item by $2 million, citing “unjustified support growth” from the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations, but otherwise recommends full funding for the Air Force GPS program ($936.775 million).

The NDAA also includes three GPS-related policy provisions: Reporting Requirement (Section 1621), Oversight Council (Section 1603), and M-Code Equipage (Section 1605).

New Space Law Mentions PNT Coordination Office

On Nov. 25, the president also signed the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act. Title III of the act codifies the support that the Department of Commerce (DOC) provides to the National Coordination Office for Space-Based PNT.

Specifically, it tasks DOC’s Office of Space Commerce “to provide support to federal government organizations working on Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing policy, including the National Coordination Office for Space-Based Position, Navigation, and Timing.”

Senator Franken Reintroduces GPS Data Privacy Bill

On Nov. 10, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) reintroduced the Location Privacy Protection Act, which he also introduced during the 112th and 113th Congresses. According to the Senator, “The Location Privacy Protection Act of 2015 closes legal loopholes that allow stalking applications to exist on smartphones.

Sen. Franken’s bill fixes this problem by requiring companies to get customers’ permission before collecting their location data or sharing it with third parties.” The bill joins several others in the 114th Congress that address geolocation privacy issues, including the Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance Act (“GPS Act”) and the Online Communications and Geolocation Protection Act.

The summaries here are from the GPS Bulletin, which is available through the gps.gov website.