POLITICO MORNING TECH: STRENGTHENING SECURITY

A familiar boogeyman will be the main target of today’s House Energy & Commerce subcommittee hearing: China. The chamber’s subcommittee on communications and technology will review a slew of bills meant to bolster the nation’s telecom network from foreign adversaries, providing an opportunity for lawmakers to garner support for their own policy proposals. Readers can expect lots of talk on programs like rip-and-replace and the lack of funding Congress has allocated to those efforts. That lack of funding is a sore spot for the telecom industry, which was promised reimbursements to remove Huawei tech from their networks.

“While there has been real progress in the past few years at improving network security, the

United States has only begun to grapple with the broad set of digital vulnerabilities,” James

Lewis, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, will say, per a

copy of his prepared remarks. “The United States need[s] to rethink and restructure its policies to

take into account the competition with China and the importance of network security for our

national security.”

— What’s on deck: The panel currently has five bills meant to bolster the security of the nation’s

networks and lessen reliance on foreign tech. But most are partisan, so expect lawmakers to

stump for their own bills while looking for allies on the other side of the aisle.

One of the measures, sponsored by subcommittee ranking member Doris Matsui (D-Calif.),

would direct the Federal Communications Commission to establish a task force focused on

developing and advancing 6G technology. The goal is to stay ahead of the Chinese

government, which included 6G technology in its latest five-year plan.

Lindsay Gorman, senior fellow for emerging tech at the think tank German Marshall Fund, will

advocate for investment in R&D and commercialization and sustained international collaboration

and engagement to prevent China from dominating 6G, according to her prepared remarks.

She’ll also call on Congress to create a budgetary line item to support the U.S.-EU Trade and

Technology Council and Quad Critical and Emerging Technology Working Group to ensure the

international dialogue is maintained even when administrations change.

The Foreign Adversary Communications Transparency Act is the only bipartisan bill set to be

brought up during today’s hearing. The bill is led by Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) and Ro

Khanna (D-Calif.), and would require the FCC to publish a list of every entity that holds a

license or authorization from the agency and has ties to countries including China, Cuba, Iran

and North Korea. The bill’s purpose is to boost transparency in tech suppliers, which Lewis will

argue should be the first step to help U.S. wireless providers assess risks.

Another bill led by Stefanik, the Countering CCP Drones Act, would add Chinese drone maker

DJI Technologies to the list of covered communications equipment or services under the Secure

and Trusted Communications Networks Act. Technologies on the list are considered to “pose an

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