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Yesterday, the Subcommittees on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation and Water Resources and Environment held a joint hearing to examine federal maritime navigation programs. The Subcommittees heard from the United States Coast Guard, the United States Army Corps of Engineers (Corps), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). As reported in POLITICO, the U.S. Coast Guard assured a congressional panel that GPS navigation won't take the place of physical navigation aids like buoys and beacons.

Rear Admiral Paul Thomas told lawmakers the Coast Guard aims to modernize the physical aids to navigation (ATON), for example, by replacing large steel buoys in the Great Lakes with ice-resistant plastic ones that won't need to be removed for the winter and re-positioned in the spring.

But the emphasis is shifting to electronic navigation. In March, the Coast Guard dramatically increased the number of vessels required to carry electronic ATON.

Lawmakers expressed concern that maritime GPS systems could be susceptible to cyberattack. The Department of Homeland Security and Coast Guard are exploring options for a complementary navigation system that could run alongside GPS and act as a backup in case of a GPS outage.

Here is a link to access the hearing notice: http://transportation.house.gov/uploadedfiles/2016-09-07_-_coast_guard_and_water_ssm.pdf.