During a House Appropriations Committee hearing before the congressional recess, Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA) questioned FCC Chair Brendan Carr about communication infrastructure.
00:00That's very kind of you, and I want to apologize on the record because in the efforts not to mispronounce your name, I screwed up the order.
00:07It's my fault.
00:10And next we have the gentle lady from Iowa, Ms. Hinson, for questions.
00:15Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:16Thank you, Chairman Carr, for coming to testify before our committee, and I'm really impressed with the work you've already managed to do in the first, you know, 100-plus days, and really excited about what's to come.
00:26And I just want to start off by following up on some of my Chairman's questions on the Rip and Replace program, obviously fully funded last December, and I understand that those funds kind of began flowing at the end of April.
00:38Obviously, this is really, really important for national security when you talk about the risks that the CCP poses.
00:44They're already in our networks, and we know that.
00:47You talked about Huawei and ZTE and these threats facing many of our small telecoms.
00:52And you mentioned your 28 percent, I think, is the number you said, done here, and you expect to be done about a year from now.
00:59Can you just give me kind of an assessment in terms of what you're seeing in securing our networks there?
01:04Are there any practical barriers with providers that you're encountering when it comes to implementation here?
01:11Yeah, the largest challenge we had for the longest period of time was the funding shortfall.
01:16And since Congress was able to close that, we've moved very quickly to allocate that funding.
01:22And at this point, I feel like we're on track now to meet all those marks.
01:25But to your point, more broadly, the threat posed by foreign adversaries and the CCP in particular is multifaceted.
01:32They don't just come at our country through one particular technology vector.
01:35And that's why we stood up a new Council on National Security at the FCC.
01:39We can see it through providers that we've kicked out of the networks before, like China Mobile and China Telecom.
01:45We see the device layer, as you noted, as well, as well as hacking instances.
01:49There's been, you know, wide reporting on the Salt Typhoon cyber intrusion.
01:53I think the public reporting has linked that back to China.
01:56And so we need to be exceptionally vigilant across every single technology vector right now.
02:00Right. So you mentioned those operations by the CCP, and, you know, obviously they're in our equipment,
02:06which poses a serious espionage and cybersecurity threat to our networks.
02:12So what are you doing to strengthen the communications and infrastructure outside of rip and replace, right?
02:17So that's one tactic here.
02:18But obviously there needs to be more that we're doing to ensure that our communications are safe and secure in this country.
02:23One of the actions we're taking that we have actually teed up to vote at the commission level tomorrow morning is there's no piece of electronics that can come into this country
02:33without going through the FCC's equipment authorization process.
02:37And up to now, that process has been limited to technical reviews.
02:40What spectrum does the device operate on?
02:42What's its power level?
02:43But increasingly, to your point, we're asking for national security checks as part of the devices that are coming in here.
02:49We've never actually determined whether individual labs that perform these checks for the U.S., for any device, are themselves trustworthy.
02:57And so we're adopting a new standard in a vote tomorrow that's going to make sure the labs that do the testing for the devices
03:03are not themselves beholden to some sort of foreign adversary.
03:08So that's another sort of check that we're taking.
03:10And there's additional actions that we can continue to take, including adding new entities to our covered list that we're looking at taking.
03:16What are some of the standards? You mentioned that kind of new approach to accreditation, so to speak.
03:22What are some of the questions that you're asking of them to certify that they are not beholden to someone else
03:27and are safe to be issuing these clarifications for you?
03:31Yeah. Step one is to adopt that standard, that they be trustworthy actors, not beholden to a foreign adversary.
03:38And the different ways that could play out in application, we've already seen one.
03:41So, for instance, when we started this process, we found that Huawei was operating a lab.
03:46And so we took action to make sure that Huawei labs are no longer part of the FCC-approved equipment authorization process.
03:52So if there's entities like a Huawei lab that we determine has sufficient ties to the PLA or the CCP that are risky connections,
04:00then we'll now, for the first time, have the ability to take action.
04:02Is there a master list that's – I mean, are you compiling with – working with DOD on this?
04:07I mean, obviously, they have their blacklist of companies and entities that are directly tied to the CCP.
04:12Are you reconciling with them to do that?
04:15This is actually a good question because it ties into another item that we're voting on tomorrow morning,
04:19which is effectively similar to a House bill called the FACT Act.
04:22And what this would do would bring greater transparency.
04:25So it would take every single entity that has an FCC authorization or a license or approval
04:30that has sufficiently concerning ties back to China and it would – or to a foreign adversary –
04:36and it would publicize that list.
04:38And so hopefully if we get that item across the finish line, we will bring more transparency,
04:42we'll publicize that list, tracking the approach that Congress here has taken in FACT Act legislation,
04:48and that will shine a spotlight on some of these operations.
04:50Yeah. Well, certainly we want to make sure that the congruency is there between agencies.
04:54If the blacklist at DOD has a company on it, you certainly should be equally as wary as they are.
05:01But I appreciate the work you're doing. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. I yield that.
