Review - S 4572 Introduced – ROUTERS Act

Back in June, Sen Blackburn (R,TN) introduced S 4572, the Removing Our Unsecure Technologies to Ensure Reliability and Security (ROUTERS) Act. The bill would require the Department of Commerce to conduct a study on the national security risks of routers and modems manufactured in China. No new funding is authorized by the legislation.

This bill is VERY similar to HR 7589 which was reported favorably by the House Energy and Commerce Committee back in May. The two bills are technically not identical because the definition subsection is in §2(c) in the House bill and in §2(a) in the Senate bill. Otherwise, the provisions of the two bills are the same.

Moving Forward

Both Blackburn and her sole cosponsor {Sen Lujan (D,NM)} are members of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration. This means that there may be sufficient influence to see the bill considered in Committee. I see nothing in this bill that would engender any organized opposition. I suspect that the bill will receive substantial bipartisan support in Committee. As with most bills introduced in the Senate, this one has none of the political pressure necessary to bring the bill to the floor of the Senate under regular order. It is, however, a prime candidate for consideration under the unanimous consent process.

 

For more details about the provisions of this bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/s-4572-introduced - subscription required.