House committee advances Mast’s Undersea Cable Control Act

The U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee on March 1 advanced bipartisan legislation sponsored by U.S. Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) that aims to prevent China from accessing goods and technologies capable of supporting undersea cables. The bill now awaits consideration by the full U.S. House of Representatives.

“Look what they’ve done with balloons. Look what they’ve done with social media. Why on earth would we want China to control one of the most powerful communications tools on the planet?” Rep. Mast said. “This is the exact same Chinese Communist Party that wants to topple America and put communism on top. We must protect this infrastructure and technology that Americans rely on every day.”

The Undersea Cable Control Act, H.R. 1189, which Rep. Mast sponsored on Feb. 24 with lead original cosponsor U.S. Rep. Andy Kim (D-NJ), would require the Biden administration to develop a strategy to limit foreign adversaries like China from accessing goods and technologies capable of supporting undersea cables and establishing agreements with allies and partners to do the same, according to a bill summary provided by the lawmakers.

Undersea cables are critical components for global communication infrastructures, with 99 percent of all transoceanic digital communications transporting data like the internet through these fiber-optics cables, according to the summary. 

H.R. 1189 would invoke the Export Control Reform Act to restrict the export of items that could support undersea cables and that would prove detrimental to the national security and the economy of the United States, the summary says.