House Communications Hearing Expected to Center on Securing US 5G Leadership

The bills to be considered include five recently filed measures: the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act (HR-4459), the Network Security Information Sharing Act (HR-4461), the Studying How to Harness Airwave Resources Efficiently Act (HR-4462), the Promoting United States Wireless Leadership Act (HR-4463) and House Resolution 575. HR-4459 would require the FCC to establish the Secure and Trusted Communications Reimbursement Program to provide funding to small carriers to remove equipment from companies that may be a security risk, including Chinese equipment makers Huawei and ZTE (see 1909240065). HR-4461 would direct the Homeland Security secretary to create a “program to share information regarding supply chain security risks with trusted providers of advanced communications service and trusted suppliers of communications equipment or services.”

HR-4462 would direct the FCC and NTIA to develop a R&D program to find new ways to share frequencies between federal incumbents and commercial users. HR-4463 would direct NTIA to encourage U.S. companies and others to participate in international standards-setting bodies. H.Res. 575 would express the sense of the House that 5G development stakeholders should consider adhering to proposals adopted at the May Prague 5G Security Conference. The conference emphasized a cooperative approach to security, with each nation free to develop its own policies (see 1905030052).

Also on the docket are the House versions of what the Senate Commerce Committee cleared earlier this year (see 1904030078 and 1907240061): the Eliminate From Regulators Opportunities to Nationalize the Internet in Every Respect (E-Frontier) Act (HR-2063) and the Secure 5G and Beyond Act (HR-2881). HR-2063 and Senate version S-918 would bar the White House from proposing the U.S. build a national 5G network without congressional authorization (see 1807230059). HR-2881 and Senate version S-893 would require the president develop a strategy for ensuring security of 5G networks and infrastructure (see 1903270065).

Lawmakers' Interests

House Communications Chairman Mike Doyle, D-Pa., and House Commerce Committee ranking member Greg Walden, R-Ore., in interviews expressed concerns on both supply chain security and federal management of spectrum and other telecom infrastructure resources. Doyle indicated he hopes to hold an October markup on at least some measures that House Communications will examine Friday (see 1909250063).

“I don't know that we'll be able to get too much” into supply chain security measures during an open session like the Friday hearing, but “we've known of problems for some time,” Walden told us. “We probably need to do a classified version” of the panel too to get a full picture. Concerns about U.S. 5G leadership, including its spectrum resources management, are “all kind of part” of the security conversation too, he said. “These are core pieces of an infrastructure we take for granted every night and every day.” HR-4459, for which Walden is lead GOP sponsor, will be important to help “get some of this” suspect equipment out of small providers' networks “if this indeed is a problem,” he said.

“I still have questions” and concerns about efforts to give DOD a larger spectrum management role, like language in the Senate-passed FY 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (S-1790) that would call for DOD to work with the FCC and NTIA to establish a spectrum sharing R&D program aimed at sharing between 5G technologies, federal and nonfederal incumbent systems, Walden said. He's one of several policymakers attempting (see 1909180048) to have the Senate-passed language removed via a House-Senate conference committee's work to reconcile S-1790 and the House-passed NDAA (HR-2500). Walden's uncertain about the need to enact legislation like HR-2063/S-918 since “I don't think” President Donald Trump's administration is “going to go down” the path of 5G nationalization given the widespread outcry that has greeted such proposals as well as opposition by Trump (see 1904120065).

There's “going to be a pretty strong narrative” coming out of the hearing on the need to ensure well-being of the U.S. communications apparatus and “what [House Commerce] leaders are willing to come together on” to address issues of supply chain security and spectrum, said a communications sector lobbyist who follows Democrats. The panel will give committee lawmakers a chance to “play a role” in the ongoing debate over Huawei and ZTE, which has also manifested in NDAA conference talks (see 1907220053).

Witnesses' Testimony

Pine Belt Communications President John Nettles endorses HR-4459 and HR-4461 in written testimony, while Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld gives more tepid backing. Small carriers “across the country have been all but frozen in our tracks since early last year by the cloud of uncertainty cast over us when the presence of certain vendor equipment in our networks was publicly called into question,” Nettles says. "We greatly appreciate” efforts “to provide certainty to all carriers regarding what equipment can and cannot be used and, of equal importance, to provide desperately needed resources to allow carriers like Pine Belt to take the steps necessary to secure our networks.”

PK “generally supports the concepts of” HR-4459 and HR-4461, but believes HR-4459 “requires several modifications for due process purposes, such as a mechanism to challenge inclusion on the covered list and a mechanism to seek removal from the covered list,” Feld says. “Reimbursement should not be limited to equipment purchased before August 2018 -- especially if new providers are added to the covered list.” PK supports HR-4463 because it will “help protect against the use of standards bodies for illegal collusion,” he said. The group opposes HR-2063/S-918 because it's “unnecessary and a potential source of negative unintended consequences. The federal government “cannot build a new network without an appropriation from Congress,” Feld says. “This provides more than adequate protection in the event that a future administration should ever seek to move beyond consideration of a national network.”

Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute Managing Director-CERT Division Bobbie Stempfley lauds supply chain security-centric legislation generally as “a very good first step. “As the appropriate entities begin to implement supply chain security, encouraging resilience as a criterion in every stage of development and supply of ICT must continue to be the forward-leaning focus of the software and supply chain assurance efforts within government and industry,” she says.

Qualcomm Senior Vice President-Spectrum Strategy and Tech Policy Dean Brenner says that “enabling a steady stream of new spectrum -- low, mid, and high band; and, licensed, unlicensed, and shared -- is essential for the rapid, broad 5G roll-out.” Qualcomm is “working on 5G at a feverish pace, but our work depends on the continued, steady stream of new spectrum, so thank you for continuing to make spectrum a high priority,” he says.