Stakeholders providing feedback to the Commerce Department on rules for executing a May executive order that would ban U.S. entities from purchasing information and communications technology from “foreign adversaries” say they should put the proceeding on hold, and examine how they might be affected by related efforts by other parts of the government.
And according to comments submitted on the Jan. 10 deadline by the Rural Wireless Association, “the proposed rules may even violate existing federal law.”
Smaller rural carriers represented by the RWA would be particularly affected by the executive order, which—while company and country “agnostic”—is seen to be aimed at Chinese telecom equipment providers like Huawei and ZTE.
U.S. intelligence agencies have long warned—in classified settings—of the companies’ uncomfortable ties to the Chinese government, contributing to a bipartisan push to remove them from U.S. critical infrastructure due to concerns the companies could be used to infiltrate and compromise networks and conduct espionage.
But smaller entities have used lower cost equipment offered by the companies to make internet connections available in harder to cover rural areas.
The Commerce proposal is to conduct evaluations of transactions constituting a national security threat and to make determinations on a “case-by-case basis.”
“It is erroneous and premature of the Commerce Department to determine, without explanation, that the proposed rules do not constitute an unfunded mandate, wrote RWA General Counsel Caressa Bennet in the comments, noting the proposed rules do not include an assessment of qualitative and quantitative anticipated costs and benefits of the federal mandate, including those to the private sector as well as future compliance costs, as required by the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995.
“The Commerce Department needs to reverse its preliminary decision that the pro ..
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