§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. Members include senior DoD leaders: the Under Secretaries for Policy, Research and Engineering, and Acquisition and Sustainment; the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; commanders of Strategic Command, Northern Command, Space Command, and Cyber Command; the NSA Director; the DoD Chief Information Officer; the military department Secretaries; and any other officers the Secretary names. 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 of Staff. The council must oversee PNT performance and interoperability, find and fix vulnerabilities, develop system architecture, explore alternative PNT methods, and set priorities for resources. Each year when the President’s budget is sent to Congress under section 1105(a) of title 31, the council must send a report to the congressional defense committees with a review of the past year, planned activities for the period covered by the current future-years defense program under section 221 of this title, any requirement changes and their effects, and a budget breakdown for PNT programs. Within 30 days after the President’s budget, the Commander of U.S. Space Command must give the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff an assessment of whether the budget meets required PNT capabilities for the budget year and the four subsequent fiscal years and describe fixes if not. The Chairman then has 30 days to send that assessment and any comments to the congressional defense committees. If the council finds a House bill gives too little funding for PNT, it must tell the congressional defense committees. The Secretary of Defense must notify the congressional defense committees in writing within 14 days after learning of any anomaly in the PNT enterprise. The council ends 10 years after the date of the enactment of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022.