Fischer on Senate Floor: Congress Must Pass the Foreign Adversary Communications Transparency Act

Today, during a speech on the Senate floor, U.S. Senator Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) called on her colleagues to pass her Foreign Adversary Communications Transparency (FACT) Act - approved by the Senate Commerce Committee last week - which will require the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to publicly identify entities that hold FCC licenses, authorizations, or other grants of authority that are owned, wholly or partially, by foreign adversarial governments.

In her remarks, Fischer highlights the threats the United States faces from companies with strong ties to foreign adversaries. She specifically calls out Huawei, a major global supplier of cellphone network equipment, citing its troubling and potentially dangerous access to critical communications infrastructure.

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Following is a transcript of Fischer's remarks as prepared for delivery :

M. President,

Last week, my bill, the Foreign Adversary Communication Transparency Act-or FACT Act- cleared the Commerce Committee unanimously. Now, it will come before us here, on the Senate floor, for a vote.

I stand before you today because the threat our foreign adversaries pose is not a distant concern. It is real, it is relentless, and it is constantly evolving.

We cannot afford to wait and deal with the consequences. The cost of inaction is too great.

Congress must anticipate the threats and we must work together to curb the malign influence of foreign adversaries like Communist China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

For too long now, we have allowed foreign adversarial governments to secure a silent foothold in our telecommunications infrastructure.

Take, for example, Huawei.

Huawei, a Chinese-owned telecommunications giant, is one of the leading producers of cellphone network equipment. This equipment spans across our country and finds its home in most of our cellular devices.

Over a decade ago, our intelligence agencies began noticing a peculiar pattern of Huawei equipment on cell towers across my home state of Nebraska, as well as nearby Colorado and Montana. That Chinese gear was clustered near sensitive military assets, including Nebraska's Offutt Air Force Base and our nuclear missile silos.

Then, just four years ago, U.S. intelligence officials sounded the alarm. Their investigations found that Huawei could secretly access mobile phone networks around the world through "back doors" - unbeknownst to carriers.

And perhaps even more concerning: Huawei has had this capability for more than a decade.

And, Huawei's ownership is bankrolled by billions of dollars from the Chinese government.

What government freely hands over that kind of money without expecting something in return?

Despite being based in China and having deep connections to the Chinese Communist Party-as confirmed by the U.S. intelligence community-the company continues to refuse to acknowledge the Chinese government's influence.

However, in 2020, under President Trump's administration, the Federal Communications Commission designated Huawei as a national security threat and banned the sale of its telecommunications equipment in the United States. This past December, Congress also secured the remaining funding to enable smaller, rural communications companies to rip risky Chinese-made equipment out of their networks.

In 2022, the Justice Department charged two Chinese intelligence officers with an unsettling crime: attempting to obstruct a federal investigation into Huawei by stealing sensitive case material from a U.S. District Attorney's office.

Colleagues, I pose to you this question: Why would the Chinese government go to such lengths to interfere in a case involving a so-called 'private company' in which they have no stake? They wouldn't.

While recent actions to curtail Huawei equipment, and those from other high-risk Chinese firms, are steps in the right direction, they don't go far enough.

We must have far greater transparency about which companies holding federal communications licenses and authorizations also have influential ties to foreign adversarial governments.

And we must look deeper at: Who has this access? And, how many more companies like Huawei are out there?

Companies like Huawei must be stopped. We can no longer permit authoritarian regimes, like China, to infiltrate our networks and lurk in the shadows, waiting for the opportune moment to strike. It is not enough to brace ourselves for the aftermath of disaster. We must root out the threat before it has time to fester.

The reality is that our foreign adversaries have stakes in numerous companies operating freely and legally within the United States.

Yet, in many cases, the public remains unaware of which companies are owned - wholly or partially - by these adversaries.

That's why, today, I call upon the Senate to pass my FACT Act, which takes a much-needed step to strengthen our visibility into our telecommunications market to weed out that access we have seen from malicious foreign adversaries.

Because the first step in defending our national security is understanding the threat.

My bill directs the Federal Communications Commission to publicly identify any companies - with an FCC license or authorization - that are owned by foreign adversarial governments. Under the FACT Act, companies with foreign ties will no longer be able to operate in secrecy. And they will no longer be able to conceal their financial backers or obscure their true loyalties.

Huawei should serve as a warning. China is on the offensive, to undermine the security of America's communications. An attack on our networks is a direct attack on the United States, and it is not one we should tolerate.

Thank you, M. President, I yield the floor.