An $88 billion tug-of-war over America’s airwaves is pitting the Pentagon against telecom giants — with wireless speeds, national security, and the size of the national debt hanging in the balance.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee ignited the fight when it advanced a budget bill that would restore the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) auction authority and require the sale of mid-band spectrum. However, the proposed provision to President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” noticeably excluded one contested piece of the spectrum — the 3.1 to 3.45 GHz band, which Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and his allies want cleared for licensed commercial use. Cruz’s stance has earned him a number of critical attack ads from at least one group with ties to the cable industry.

The fate of that slice of military-held radio spectrum is hotly contested. Mobile carriers say that auctioning it commercially could supercharge consumers’ wireless speeds. But the Defense Department warns that auctioning it off could cripple missile defense systems, and lawmakers must now decide who gets to control this coveted resource.

Cruz, who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, said his “preference is not to block off any particular bands” in a Tuesday interview with Communications Daily, adding that he’s “actively considering” what to include in the Senate’s upcoming reconciliation bill. The senator has long lamented what he calls “spectrum squatting” by federal agencies — “particularly bureaucrats at the Pentagon under the direction of Mark Milley” — and has framed reopening the lower 3 GHz band as a chance to slash the deficit with auction revenue. Neither the senator’s office nor the Senate Commerce Committee responded to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.

Mobile carriers yearn for these radio frequencies because they sit in a Goldilocks zone for wireless service — low enough to carry signals long distances, but high enough to move large amounts of data quickly. Clearing it for commercial use would unlock prime real estate for providers like AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile to expand their 5G and 6G networks. None of the three mobile providers responded to the DCNF’s request for comment.

The Pentagon, on the other hand, mainly uses the band for radar and missile defense systems and cautions that the end of its spectrum monopoly, which stretches back to the Truman administration, could hamstring important military operations.