Removing Our Unsecure Technologies to Ensure Reliability and Security Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 7589, the Removing Our Unsecure Technologies to Ensure Reliability and Security Act, or the ROUTERS Act.

This bill is an important step to provide Americans with the confidence to trust that the devices they use in their homes to connect to the internet are free from the influence of our foreign adversaries.

H.R. 7589 accomplishes this objective by requiring the Secretary of Commerce, acting through the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information, to study the national security risk posed by routers and modems found in American homes that are manufactured or sold to entities with ties to foreign adversary countries. The Secretary must also deliver a report to Congress of this study within 1 year.

I think it is crucial that we understand the cybersecurity and national security risks that our networks face from equipment that originates from our foreign adversaries. This is especially true given that our Nation's communications networks are an integral component to nearly every facet of American life, which also makes them prime targets for attack.

This legislation will help us to better protect American families and our country from bad actors who want to carry out malicious attacks.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Peltola and Chairman Latta of the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology for their bipartisan work on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, this is another bill that is part of this effort to try to make sure that our foreign adversaries are not hurting us in many ways in the communications sector. It is an important bill, and I urge my colleagues to vote for it on a bipartisan basis. I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source