NET Act
Download PDFSponsored by
Sen. Hickenlooper, John W. [D-CO]
ID: H000273
Bill's Journey to Becoming a Law
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1. Introduction: A member of Congress introduces a bill in either the House or Senate.
2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.
3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.
4. Other Chamber: If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber (House or Senate) for the same process.
5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.
7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Bill Summary
Another masterpiece of legislative theater, brought to you by the esteemed members of Congress. The NET Act, or "Network Equipment Transparency Act," because who doesn't love a good acronym? Let's dissect this farce and expose the underlying disease.
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The bill's stated purpose is to direct the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to evaluate the impact of the telecommunications network equipment supply chain on universal service deployment. How noble. In reality, this is just a thinly veiled attempt to give the FCC more power and create a new bureaucratic hurdle for telecom companies.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill amends Section 13(b) of the Communications Act of 1934, requiring the FCC to assess how network equipment availability affects advanced telecommunications capability deployment. Oh, wow. This is going to be a real game-changer. The amendments are so convoluted that even the most ardent supporter would struggle to explain them without falling asleep.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** Telecom companies will be forced to provide more information to the FCC, because who doesn't love filling out more paperwork? Consumers might see some minor benefits from improved universal service deployment, but let's not get too excited – this is just a drop in the ocean of bureaucratic inefficiency.
**Potential Impact & Implications:** The real impact will be on the telecom industry's bottom line. This bill is a classic example of regulatory capture, where special interest groups (in this case, equipment manufacturers) use their influence to shape policy and stifle competition. The FCC will get more power, and the industry will get more red tape. Consumers will get... well, nothing they didn't already have.
Diagnosis: This bill is suffering from a bad case of "Regulatory Capture-itis," a disease characterized by an overabundance of bureaucratic nonsense and a complete disregard for the public interest. The symptoms include:
* Excessive use of jargon and acronyms * Convoluted amendments that serve no practical purpose * A complete lack of transparency (ironic, given the bill's title) * Special interests masquerading as "public good"
Treatment: Apply a healthy dose of skepticism and ridicule to the sponsors of this bill. Force them to explain their reasoning in plain English, without resorting to bureaucratic doublespeak. And for goodness' sake, don't let them near any actual policy decisions.
Prognosis: This bill will likely pass, because who doesn't love a good show of legislative theater? But its impact will be negligible, and the real winners will be the special interests who managed to sneak their agenda into the fine print.
Related Topics
đź’° Campaign Finance Network
No campaign finance data available for Sen. Hickenlooper, John W. [D-CO]
Project 2025 Policy Matches
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document. Higher similarity scores indicate stronger thematic connections.
Introduction
— 850 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise It should be noted at this point that the views expressed here are not shared uniformly by all conservatives. There are some, including contributors to this chapter, who do not think that the FCC or Congress should act in a way that regulates the content-moderation decisions of private platforms. One of the main arguments that this group offers is that doing so would intrude— unlawfully in their view—on the First Amendment rights of corporations to exclude content from their private platforms. l Require that Big Tech begin to contribute a fair share. Big Tech has avoided accountability in several additional ways as well. One of them concerns the FCC’s roughly $9 billion Universal Service Fund. This initiative provides the support necessary to subsidize the agency’s affordable Internet and rural connectivity programs. The FCC obtains this funding through a line-item charge that carriers add to consumers’ monthly bills for traditional telecommunications service. While Big Tech derives tremendous value from the federal government’s universal service investments—using those federally supported networks to deliver their products and realize significant profits—these large corporations have avoided paying a fair share into the program. On top of that, the FCC’s current funding mechanism has been on an unsustainable path.21 By requiring traditional telephone customers to contribute to a fund that is being used increasingly to support broadband networks, the FCC’s current approach is the regulatory equivalent of taxing horseshoes to pay for highways. To put the FCC’s universal service program on a stable footing, Congress should require Big Tech companies to start contributing an appropriate amount. Conservatives are not unanimous in agreeing that the FCC should expand the USF contribution base. Instead, some argue that Congress should revisit the program’s entire funding structure and determine whether to continue subsidizing the provision of service. Future funding decisions, the argument goes, should be made by Congress through the normal appropriation process through which the USF program can compete for funding with other national initiatives. These decisions should be made with an eye to right-sizing the federal government’s existing broadband initiatives in light of both technological advances and the recent influx of billions of dollars in new appropriations that can be used to support efforts to end the digital divide. Protecting America’s National Security. During the Trump Administra- tion, the FCC ushered in a new and appropriately strong approach to the national — 851 — Federal Communications Commission security threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). During that time, the FCC eliminated federal subsidies for telecommunications equipment from Huawei and ZTE, thereby greatly reducing the chances of that equipment finding a way into our nation’s communications networks. The FCC also stood up a program to rip and replace insecure network gear to ensure that it did not remain a threat lurking inside our systems. The FCC revoked or denied the licenses of carriers like China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom, which presented unacceptable national security risks. There are, however, additional strong actions that the FCC can and should take to address the CCP’s malign campaign. Specifically: l Address TikTok’s threat to U.S. national security. As law enforcement officials have made clear, TikTok poses a serious and unacceptable risk to America’s national security.22 It also provides Beijing with an opportunity to run a foreign influence campaign by determining the news and information that the app feeds to millions of Americans. As of this writing, the Biden Administration’s Treasury Department has not announced a final decision concerning its long-pending review of TikTok. If that inaction persists, or if the Administration allows TikTok to continue to operate in the U.S., a new Administration should ban the application on national security grounds. l Expand the FCC’s Covered List. The FCC maintains a list of communications equipment and services that pose an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States. It is known as the Covered List.23 Huawei is one of the companies on the Covered List, and its inclusion means that the FCC will no longer review or approve new applications from Huawei. Without FCC approval, new Huawei gear cannot be lawfully sold or used in the U.S. However, the FCC must do a better job of ensuring that its Covered List stays up to date and accounts for changes in corporate names and forms. Therefore, a new Administration should create a more regular and timely process for reviewing entities with ties to the CCP’s surveillance state. l End the unregulated end run. As noted above, China Telecom and similar entities have been banned from operating in the U.S. in a manner that would require an FCC license or authorization because of the national security risks that those entities pose. However, many of these same entities are still operating in the U.S. and offering services very similar to the ones that they are prohibited from providing. China Telecom, for instance, continues to provide services to data centers by offering the services on a private or “unregulated” basis. A new Administration should work with the FCC to close this loophole. One way to do so would be for the FCC to prohibit any regulated carrier from interconnecting with an insecure provider.
Introduction
— 852 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise l Publish a foreign adversary transparency list. As part of the FCC’s ongoing work to secure our networks from entities that would do the bidding of our foreign adversaries, the FCC should do more to shine the light of transparency on the scope of the problem. To this end, the FCC should compile and publish a list of all entities that hold FCC authorizations, licenses, or other grants of authority with more than 10 percent ownership by foreign adversarial governments, including the governments of China, Russia, Iran, Syria, or North Korea. A bipartisan bill that would require the FCC to publish this type of list has been introduced in the House of Representatives by Representatives Elise Stefanik (R–NY), Ro Khanna (D– CA), and Mike Gallagher (R–WI).24 l Fully fund the federal “rip and replace” program. In 2019, Congress established a $1.9 billion Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program (known colloquially as the “rip and replace” program) to reimburse communications providers for the reasonable expenses they would incur to remove, replace, and dispose of insecure Huawei and ZTE gear. However, $1.9 billion is about $3 billion short of the total amount of funding needed to complete the rip and replace process. A new Administration should ensure that the program is fully funded and should look first at repurposing and applying unused COVID-era emergency funds for this purpose. l Launch a Clean Standards Initiative. During the Trump Administration, the U.S. government launched a worldwide Clean Networks program.25 As a result of this initiative, many of the U.S. government’s allies started the process of ending their relationships with Huawei. It is time for an Administration to build and expand on this groundbreaking work by taking a similar approach to the standard-setting process. Right now, the CCP is seeking to extend its influence by exerting control over the development of standards in a variety of areas, including technology and telecommunications. It is vital that the United States meet this threat with a comprehensive clean standards initiative. l Stop aiding the CCP’s authoritarian approach to artificial intelligence. The CCP has set itself a goal of becoming the global leader in artificial intelligence (AI) by 2030. Beijing is bent on using this technology to exert authoritarian control domestically and export its authoritarian governance model overseas. U.S. businesses are aiding Beijing in this effort— often unwittingly—by feeding, training, and improving the AI datasets of companies that are beholden to the CCP. One way that U.S. companies — 853 — Federal Communications Commission are doing this is by giving Beijing access to their high-powered cloud computing services. Therefore, it is time for an Administration to put in place a comprehensive plan that aims to stop U.S. entities from directly or indirectly contributing to China’s malign AI goals. Unleashing Economic Prosperity. The FCC needs to advance a pro-growth agenda that gives every American a fair shot at next-generation connectivity. This is vital for economic opportunity and prosperous communities. The current Administration has appropriated a lot of money for broadband infrastructure proj- ects, but it has failed to pair that spending with reforms that free more airwaves for wireless connectivity or streamline the permitting processes for broadband builds. That failure is holding back America’s hardworking telecommunications crews and leaving Americans stuck waiting on the wrong side of the digital divide. It is time for a return to the successful spectrum and infrastructure policies that prevailed during the Trump Administration—policies that enabled the U.S. to lead the world in 5G. l Refill America’s spectrum pipeline. From 2017 through 2020, the FCC took unprecedented steps to free the airwaves needed to power 5G and other next-generation wireless services. This work not only helped to secure America’s wireless leadership and bolster competition, but also enabled the private sector to create jobs and grow the economy. Recently, the FCC has failed to match the pace and cadence of those spectrum actions. Therefore, the FCC and a new Administration should work together to develop a national spectrum strategy that both identifies the specific airwaves that the FCC can free for commercial wireless services and sets an aggressive timeline for agency action. l Facilitate coordination on spectrum issues. Wireless services now play a central role in advancing America’s economic and national security interests. Over the past few years, this dynamic has led to an increasing number of headline-level disputes between the commercial wireless sector and federal agencies. These disputes are often framed in zero-sum terms as commercial wireless and federal agency stakeholders argue over the appropriate types and amount of airwaves that the government should allocate for various purposes. On the one hand, America’s global economic leadership depends on its ability to free spectrum that will power the U.S. commercial wireless industry. On the other hand, we must ensure that America’s national security and other federal agencies have access to the spectrum resources that they need to carry out their vital missions.
Introduction
— 852 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise l Publish a foreign adversary transparency list. As part of the FCC’s ongoing work to secure our networks from entities that would do the bidding of our foreign adversaries, the FCC should do more to shine the light of transparency on the scope of the problem. To this end, the FCC should compile and publish a list of all entities that hold FCC authorizations, licenses, or other grants of authority with more than 10 percent ownership by foreign adversarial governments, including the governments of China, Russia, Iran, Syria, or North Korea. A bipartisan bill that would require the FCC to publish this type of list has been introduced in the House of Representatives by Representatives Elise Stefanik (R–NY), Ro Khanna (D– CA), and Mike Gallagher (R–WI).24 l Fully fund the federal “rip and replace” program. In 2019, Congress established a $1.9 billion Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program (known colloquially as the “rip and replace” program) to reimburse communications providers for the reasonable expenses they would incur to remove, replace, and dispose of insecure Huawei and ZTE gear. However, $1.9 billion is about $3 billion short of the total amount of funding needed to complete the rip and replace process. A new Administration should ensure that the program is fully funded and should look first at repurposing and applying unused COVID-era emergency funds for this purpose. l Launch a Clean Standards Initiative. During the Trump Administration, the U.S. government launched a worldwide Clean Networks program.25 As a result of this initiative, many of the U.S. government’s allies started the process of ending their relationships with Huawei. It is time for an Administration to build and expand on this groundbreaking work by taking a similar approach to the standard-setting process. Right now, the CCP is seeking to extend its influence by exerting control over the development of standards in a variety of areas, including technology and telecommunications. It is vital that the United States meet this threat with a comprehensive clean standards initiative. l Stop aiding the CCP’s authoritarian approach to artificial intelligence. The CCP has set itself a goal of becoming the global leader in artificial intelligence (AI) by 2030. Beijing is bent on using this technology to exert authoritarian control domestically and export its authoritarian governance model overseas. U.S. businesses are aiding Beijing in this effort— often unwittingly—by feeding, training, and improving the AI datasets of companies that are beholden to the CCP. One way that U.S. companies
About These Correlations
Policy matches are calculated using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text. A score of 60% or higher indicates meaningful thematic overlap. This does not imply direct causation or intent, but highlights areas where legislation aligns with Project 2025 policy objectives.