President, Congress Abandon National Infrastructure
November 10, 2009 By: Alan CameronTeams in the National Football League have backups. The United States government, military, financial network, wireless communication, and transportation infrastructures do not. Having ridden to election in part on the back of the previous administration’s lack of readiness for and response to natural disaster, the Obama administration and Democratic Congress seem willing, if not eager, to commit the same egregious errors of their own.
The following story constitutes an editorial opinion, based on current facts, by GPS World editor Alan Cameron. Response mechanism included.
In 2001, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Volpe Report clearly indicated the vulnerability of GPS to interference, both intentional and unintentional, as well as disruption due to natural atmospheric factors. It also delineated the consequent vulnerability of critical national infrastructure of several kinds, which depend upon GPS for highly precise timing, as well as position and navigation. Since that date, not a single administration finger, red or blue, has lifted in proactive response. Minimal hand-waving has occurred. Now the executive fist, seeking to wring some drop of financial savings from some obscure program somewhere, has clamped on Loran, the sole practical back-up to GPS, and throttled the life out of it.
This in blithe ignorance of the government’s own commissioned Independent Assessment Team, which found that “the cost of deploying eLoran technology [an updated improvement on Loran] would be about $100 million, which is about the same cost as dismantling the current Loran infrastructure.” The philosophy, if Congress and government are even aware of the thought underpinnings of their actions, seems to be “You’ve got to spend money to save some,” bearing an eerie resemblance to a previous era’s operational dictum, “In order to save the village, we had to destroy it.” It further portends ill for the overall national infrastructure that the President has claimed he intends to restore, strengthen, and solidify.
On October 28, President Barack Obama signed into law a bill that effectively terminates the struggle to mount back-up system for GPS: Loran-C and eLoran, a system that could prevent national and industrial infrastructure breakdown in the event of various probable disruptions, interference, or intentional jamming.
The President signed the Department of Homeland Defense (DHS) appropriations bill that allows termination of Loran-C in Jan 2010. The U.S. House of Representatives also passed a revised version of its Coast Guard authorization bill, replacing the mandate to convert Loran-C into eLoran with a call for its termination, in line with the DHS appropriations bill. Further details are available at the PNT website.
The Coast Guard Commandant and DHS are expected to sign off almost immediately that Loran-C can be terminated. Once they sign it, Loran signals could go off the air as soon as January 4, 2010.
In his first budget, President Obama stated that Loran-C was obsolete, and that obsolete systems would be eliminated. The administration and Democrat-led Congress continue to assert, in the face of expert testimony and evidence to the contrary, that Loran-C is the poster child of obsolete systems, and must be killed. The politicians appear immune to any notion that GPS is vulnerable to a range of disruptions, and that the national timing, communications, and financial infrastructures that depend on GPS are likewise open both to intentional attack and to natural interference.
The attached PDF reproduces in its entirety a letter to Secretary of Homeland Defense Janet Napolitano from Senators Joseph Lieberman (chair, Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs) and Senator Susan Collins, ranking member of same committee. The following paragraphs briefly excerpt key portions of the letter.
“It is vital that you have the input of critical infrastructure users of GPS before deciding on this certification [that Loran-C is not needed as a back-up to GPS], and the Department’s survey of these users has not been completed.”
“In January 2009, an Independent Assessment Team, commissioned jointly by DHA and DoT, released a report that unanimously concluded that eLoran should serve as the national back-up for GPS and that the Loran-C infrastructure should be maintained until full eLoran deployment.”
[Editor’s note: The IAT report was actually completed in 2007, but withheld from public release by the U.S. government for two years, until various filings forced it into the open.]
“Aside from signal interference an limitations related to depletion of the GPS constellation, there is also the danger of intentional actions to destroy,or jam the signal of, GPS satellites.”
“DHS officials committed during their confirmation hearings that the Department would provide [its survey of all 18 critical infrastructure sectors to determine whether a backup to GPS is needed] by July 30, 2009. Three months after its due date, that survey has not been completed. Any decision to certify the decommissioning of Loran infrastructure should be delayed until this report is provided to and reviewed by Congress.”
If you agree with any of the opinions presented here or in the attached PDF letter from U.S. Senators, feel free to print it out and forward it, above your own signature, to your respective Congresspeople, to DHS Secretary Napolitano, and to the White House.
Secretary Janet Napolitano
Department of Homeland Security
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, DC 20528
Comment Line: 202-282-8495
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Comments: 202-456-1111
An e-mail form is also available.
Should you disagree with any of the above, feel free to e-mail GPS World’s editor. Correspondence may be considered for publishing as a letter to the editor for an upcoming issue of the magazine, but will not be printed without your express written permission.
For additional perspective on this issue, see related articles below. Also, watch for Don Jewell's November Defense PNT editorial, coming tomorrow.
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