House Commerce Leaders Bow Expected Supply Chain Security, Spectrum Sharing Bills

Latta, R-Ohio, bowed their Studying How to Harness Airwave Resources Efficiently (Share) Act, also as expected. House Communications is expected to examine both measures during a Friday hearing on supply chain security and spectrum legislation (see 1909200058), to begin at 9:30 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn. The long-anticipated HR-4459 would require the FCC to establish the Secure and Trusted Communications Reimbursement Program to provide funding to small carriers to remove equipment originating from companies that may be a security risk, including Chinese equipment makers Huawei and ZTE. The measure would appropriate $1 billion to fund the program. Carriers with 2 million or fewer customers would qualify to receive the funding. It would also bar the use of federal funds to buy communications equipment or services from any company that's a national security risk to U.S. telecom networks. House Communications Vice Chair Doris Matsui, D-Calif., and Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., the Congressional Spectrum Caucus co-chairs, co-sponsored HR-4459. “This bipartisan legislation will protect our nation’s communications networks from foreign adversaries by helping small and rural wireless providers root-out suspect network equipment and replace it with more secure equipment,” said Guthrie, Matsui, Pallone and Walden in a statement. The Share Act is aimed in part at reasserting the existing roles the FCC and NTIA hold in managing and sharing federal spectrum. The bill's filing comes as House Commerce leaders push to jettison language in the Senate-passed FY 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (S-1790) that would tell DOD to work with the FCC and NTIA to establish a spectrum R&D program aimed at sharing among 5G technologies, federal and nonfederal incumbent systems (see 1906270051). Pallone and Walden are pushing (see 1909180048) to remove the language from the NDAA via a House-Senate conference working to marry elements of S-1790 and the House-passed NDAA (HR-2500). The Share Act would direct the FCC and NTIA to develop a plan for sharing the 7 GHz band and other frequencies between federal incumbents and commercial users. CTIA lauded Doyle and Latta for bowing the Share Act. Senior Vice President-Government Affairs Kelly Cole said the bill “reconfirms the U.S.’s longstanding process for managing and sharing federal spectrum assets is the right one.”