ATC
Congress to decide Loran’s fate this fall
Come fall, the U.S.

Come fall, the U.S. Congress will decide the fate of loran and its successor eLoran when members of the Congressional House and Senate Appropriations Committees meet in conference to determine which of their respective favored projects will live on and which will not.

Currently, five separate groups are weighing in on the value of loran, with three in favor of keeping the system operational and two opposed. The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has suggested that loran could be canceled without ill effects and save hundreds of millions of dollars. The office rejected claims that loran and eLoran were essential GPS backups, since other systems–which they didn’t specify–could do that. On the other side of the issue is a high-level DOT panel of independent experts chaired by Brad Parkinson, known widely as “The Father of GPS,” which unanimously endorsed loran as the only viable backup.