National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Celebrates 10 Years of Service

Floor Speech

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Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize the National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing which recently celebrated its 10 year anniversary in November 2015.

The National Coordination Office, also known as the NCO, was established by a presidential directive under President George W. Bush. That directive provided guidance to government agencies on the management of the Global Positioning System (GPS) and other space-based Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) systems. It also established the National Executive Committee (EXCOM) for Space-Based PNT, which is chaired jointly by the Deputy Secretaries of Defense and Transportation and includes their equivalents from the Departments of State, the Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, and Homeland Security, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

The NCO is a cadre of senior advisors from the EXCOM member agencies and has become a linchpin for national GPS policy information. Earlier this year I worked with the NCO at a Space Power Caucus event on GPS. As chairman of the caucus, I presided over this event and was impressed by the educational information on how GPS works, how it affects our daily lives and critical infrastructure, and ongoing government efforts to maintain GPS as the ``gold standard'' for PNT around the world. The transparent operations of the NCO keep track of these vital efforts and inform the EXCOM agencies, Congress, and the public on Space-based PNT.

The NCO facilitates the implementation of EXCOM tasks and disseminates information about U.S. space-based PNT programs and policy through the official government GPS website at www.gps.gov.

The Department of Commerce and its Office of Space Commerce have hosted the NCO since 2005. This longstanding relationship was recently codified in law through the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, signed November 25, 2015.

In ten years, the NCO evolved from an idea into an essential organization with significant impact within the space-based PNT community. NCO efforts ensure the EXCOM is an effective body for assisting national leaders in implementing national Space-based PNT policy.

In closing Mr. Speaker, I would like to acknowledge this organization on this milestone, and congratulate them on ten years of hard work and wish them continued success in the future.

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