Removing Our Unsecure Technologies to Ensure Reliability and Security Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. LATTA. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 7589) to direct the Secretary of Commerce, acting through the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information, to conduct a study of the national security risks posed by consumer routers, modems, and devices that combine a modem and router, and for other purposes.

The Clerk read the title of the bill.

The text of the bill is as follows: H.R. 7589

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the ``Removing Our Unsecure Technologies to Ensure Reliability and Security Act'' or the ``ROUTERS Act''. SEC. 2. STUDY OF NATIONAL SECURITY RISKS POSED BY CERTAIN ROUTERS AND MODEMS.

(a) In General.--The Secretary shall conduct a study of the national security risks posed by consumer routers, modems, and devices that combine a modem and router that are designed, developed, manufactured, or supplied by persons owned by, controlled by, or subject to the influence of a covered country.

(b) Report to Congress.--Not later than 1 year after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall submit to the Committee on Energy and Commerce of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate a report on the results of the study conducted under subsection (a).

(c) Definitions.--In this section:

(1) Covered country.--The term ``covered country'' means a country specified in section 4872(d)(2) of title 10, United States Code.

(2) Secretary.--The term ``Secretary'' means the Secretary of Commerce, acting through the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of my legislation, H.R. 7589, the ROUTERS Act.

Routers and modems play a key role in communications networks. They are the entry point through which the public accesses the internet. Thus, we must make sure that they are secure.

Bad actors can exploit vulnerabilities in routers to infect users' computers, access their information, or disrupt their networks.

National security agencies, including the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Homeland Security, have reported on the threat posed by the vulnerability in routers and how some Communist Chinese Party-sponsored hackers have used these vulnerabilities to launch attacks. We should take these matters and reports seriously.

Further, we know that companies with ties to the CCP could be forced to support China's intelligence activities. We can imagine how they could use vulnerabilities in their equipment to aid these efforts.

That is why I am pleased to sponsor the ROUTERS Act, which would direct the Secretary of Commerce through the Assistant Secretary of Communications and Information to study the national security risk posed by routers and modems produced by companies with ties to foreign adversaries. This study will help Congress understand the scope and risk of this threat and will inform whether we need to remove this equipment from our networks.

This legislation bolsters our bipartisan efforts to remove untrusted equipment from our communications ecosystem.

In the past 4 years, we passed the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act to remove Huawei and ZTE equipment from our networks, and we passed the Secure Equipment Act, which prohibits the Federal Communications Commission from authorizing equipment from untrusted vendors. Today's legislation builds on this work.

I thank our chair, the gentlewoman from Washington (Mrs. Rodgers), and the members of the Energy and Commerce Committee for a strong bipartisan vote for this legislation back in March. It is imperative we move forward with these efforts to mitigate the widespread availability of this equipment.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 7589, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. LATTA. Mr. Speaker, this legislation moved through the Energy and Commerce Committee 43-0, showing the absolute importance of moving this legislation through. I urge support of H.R. 7589 and yield back the balance of my time.

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