S 4572 Introduced
ROUTERS Act
Back in June, Sen Blackburn (R,TN) introduced S 4572, 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.
This bill is VERY similar to HR 7589 which was reported favorably by the House Energy and Commerce Committee back in May. The two bills are technically not identical because the definition subsection is in §2(c) in the House bill and in §2(a) in the Senate bill. Otherwise, the provisions of the two bills are the same.
Definitions
Subsection 2(a) 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(b) 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
Both Blackburn and her sole cosponsor {Sen Lujan (D,NM)} are members of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration. This means that there may be sufficient influence to see the bill considered in Committee. I see nothing in this bill that would engender any organized opposition. I suspect that the bill will receive substantial bipartisan support in Committee. As with most bills introduced in the Senate, this one has none of the political pressure necessary to bring the bill to the floor of the Senate under regular order. It is, however, a prime candidate for consideration under the unanimous consent process.