ROUTERS Act

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 7589) to direct the Secretary of Commerce, acting through the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information, to conduct a study of the national security risks posed by consumer routers, modems, and devices that combine a modem and router, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material in the Record on the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of my legislation, H.R. 7589, the ROUTERS Act.

Routers and modems play a key role in communications networks. They are the entry point through which the public accesses the internet. Thus, we must make sure that they are secure.

Bad actors can exploit vulnerabilities in routers to infect users' computers, access their information, or disrupt their networks.

National security agencies, including the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Homeland Security, have reported on the threat posed by the vulnerability in routers and how some Communist Chinese Party-sponsored hackers have used these vulnerabilities to launch attacks. We should take these matters and reports seriously.

Further, we know that companies with ties to the CCP could be forced to support China's intelligence activities. We can imagine how they could use vulnerabilities in their equipment to aid these efforts.

That is why I am pleased to sponsor the ROUTERS Act, which would direct

the Secretary of Commerce through the Assistant Secretary of Communications and Information to study the national security risk posed by routers and modems produced by companies with ties to foreign adversaries. This study will help Congress understand the scope and risk of this threat and will inform whether we need to remove this equipment from our networks.

This legislation bolsters our bipartisan efforts to remove untrusted equipment from our communications ecosystem.

In the past 4 years, we passed the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act to remove Huawei and ZTE equipment from our networks, and we passed the Secure Equipment Act, which prohibits the Federal Communications Commission from authorizing equipment from untrusted vendors. Today's legislation builds on this work.

I thank our chair, the gentlewoman from Washington (Mrs. Rodgers), and the members of the Energy and Commerce Committee for a strong bipartisan vote for this legislation back in March. It is imperative we move forward with these efforts to mitigate the widespread availability of this equipment.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 7589, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation moved through the Energy and Commerce Committee 43-0, showing the absolute importance of moving this legislation through. I urge support of H.R. 7589 and yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

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.