HR 7589 Introduced
ROUTERS Act
Earlier this month, Rep Latta (R,OH) introduced HR 7589, the Removing Our Unsecure Technologies to Ensure Reliability and Security (ROUTERS) Act. The bill would require the Department of Commerce to conduct a study on the national security risks of routers and modems manufactured in China. No new funding is authorized by the legislation.
Definitions
Subsection 2(c) provides definitions for two key terms used in this legislation:
The term ‘covered country’ is defined by reference to 10 USC 4872(d)(2). While the definition in that paragraph refers to four adversarial countries, the use of the term in this context (because they are the only one of the four countries that supplies significant amounts of consumer electronic equipment in the United States) almost exclusively refers to China.
In this bill the definition of Secretary effectively means the Administrator of National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).
Study
Subsection 2(a) would require NTIA to “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.” The results of the study would be reported to Congress.
Moving Forward
The House Energy and Commerce Committee took up this bill (along with 27 others) this morning. There are no results posted to the hearing web site and it does not look like any amendments were offered. I suspect that the bill was ordered reported favorably by a significantly bipartisan vote.