As I mentioned earlier, the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will be holding a hearing on “A Safe Wireless Future: Securing Our Networks and Supply Chains”. It lists nine bills that will be considered, but it is not clear whether the Subcommittee will be holding a markup of these bills.
In any case, this is the promised review of the four bills that are related to cybersecurity.
HR 3919 - Secure Equipment Act of 2021
This bill would require the FCC to conduct a rulemaking to clarify that the Commission will “no longer review or approve any application for equipment authorization for equipment that is on the list of covered communications equipment or services published by the Commission under section 2(a) of the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act of 2019” (47 USC 1601(a)) {§2(a)(2)}.
HR 4028 - Information and Communication Technology Strategy Act
This bill would require the Department of Commerce (DOC) to prepare a report for Congress “on the information and communication technology supply chain” {§2(a)}. The report would identify {§2(a)(1)}:
Information and communication technology critical to the economic competitiveness of the United States, and
The industrial capacity of United States and other trusted information and communication technology vendors that produce information and communication technology.
It would also assess {§2(a)(2)}:
The economic competitiveness of those vendors, and
Whether, and to what extent, there is a dependence by providers of advanced tele3 communications capability in the United States on information and communication technology critical to the economic competitiveness of the United States that is not trusted.
Finally, DOC would be required to develop “a whole-of-Government strategy to ensure the economic competitiveness of trusted information and communication technology vendors”{§2(b)(1)}.
HR 4032 - Open RAN Outreach Act
The bill would require DOC to “conduct outreach and provide technical assistance to small communications network providers to raise awareness of the benefits of Open RAN [Radio Access Network] networks and other open network architectures” {§2(a)}.
HR 4055 - American Cybersecurity Literacy Act
The bill would require DOC to “develop and conduct a cybersecurity literacy campaign to increase the knowledge and awareness of the American people of best practices to reduce cybersecurity risks” {§3(a). This would include encouraging the use of cybersecurity tools, including {§3(b)(1)(C)}:
Multi-factor authentication;
Complex passwords;
Firewalls; and
Anti-virus software.
More Detailed Review Coming
More detailed reviews of the individual bills will be made after the hearing (if this is a markup) or when the official copies of the bills become available from the GPO.