§2279b Council on Oversight of the Department of Defense Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Enterprise

Summary

Creates a council inside the Department of Defense to watch over the Department’s positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) systems and services, including those used by civil, commercial, scientific, and international users. Members include the Under Secretaries for Policy, Research and Engineering, and Acquisition and Sustainment; the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs; the commanders of U.S. Strategic Command, Northern Command, Space Command, and Cyber Command; the Director of the National Security Agency; the DoD Chief Information Officer; the military department Secretaries; and any other officers the Secretary adds. The council is co‑chaired by the Under Secretary for Research and Engineering, the Under Secretary for Acquisition and Sustainment, and the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. The council must check performance and interoperability, find and fix vulnerabilities, build system architecture, study alternatives, set priorities for resources, and do other tasks the Secretary assigns. Each year when the President’s budget goes to Congress, the council must send the congressional defense committees a report on last year’s work, planned work under the future‑years defense program, any requirement changes and their effects, and a budget breakdown of PNT program elements. Within 30 days after the President’s budget, the Commander of U.S. Space Command must tell the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs if the budget meets PNT needs for that year and the next four years, and the Chairman must send that assessment and comments to the committees within 30 days. The council must notify the committees if it finds a congressional bill underfunds PNT work. The Secretary must tell the committees about any PNT anomaly within 14 days of learning about it. The council ends 10 years after the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 became law.