Undersea Cable Protection Act of 2025

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1057, I call up the bill (H.R. 261) to amend the National Marine Sanctuaries Act to prohibit requiring an authorization for the installation, continued presence, operation, maintenance, repair, or recovery of undersea fiber optic cables in a national marine sanctuary if such activities have previously been authorized by a Federal or State agency, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

The Clerk read the title of the bill.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WESTERMAN. 261.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 261 sponsored by Congressman Buddy Carter of Georgia.

Undersea cables play a crucial role in the global economy. These cables are roughly 1 to 2 inches in diameter. Yet they crisscross the globe and carry approximately 95 percent of global internet traffic, facilitating trillions of dollars in global financial transactions.

The Undersea Cable Protection Act of 2025 eliminates the requirement for undersea cables to obtain a special use permit under the National Marine Sanctuaries Act as a condition to route these projects through a national marine sanctuary.

Undersea cables are and will continue to be subject to numerous environmental statutes including the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, and the Coastal Zone Management Act. These are just statutes in the Committee on Natural Resources' jurisdiction.

Many of these laws are implemented by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. We will hear from our friends on the other side of the aisle that this bill hinders NOAA's ability to conduct an environmental review of these projects. That is simply not true.

What is true, however, is that the specific use permit, which under current law only lasts 5 years, has caused national marine sanctuaries to effectively become no-go zones for undersea cables. This means reduced routes of diversity, consolidation of cable landing zones, and an increased threat to our national security.

Notably, this dynamic does not just cause stress on the physical infrastructure of these projects. Many of us are aware of the stories from around the world of undersea cables being severed with recent examples of this occurring in both Taiwan and the Baltic.

In the United States, as these cables have a limited number of landing areas, our adversaries would have the ability to cut off an increasing portion of communications, internet activity, and financial transactions by attacking just a few points.

Combine this looming threat with the increasing number of cables required in the coming years to keep pace with demand, and their growing role as critical infrastructure in our daily lives, and failure to support the continued development of these projects could pose a grave national security risk.

Removing the requirement for a special use permit advances the objectives of House Republicans and the administration to reduce regulatory burdens and encourage American competitiveness, an objective that President Trump emphasized when he signed Executive Order 14267, Reducing Anticompetitive Regulatory Barriers.

Advancing this legislation will allow for the deployment of undersea cables while providing appropriate protection of our marine resources. I urge my colleagues to support the legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important that we understand exactly what is going on here. If you look at this map, this is an example along the California coast. These pink areas are national marine sanctuaries. You have this one zone down here by Morro Bay and Grover Beach, where cables can actually leave the shore. You can see the concentration of all of the existing cables in this area.

Mr. Speaker, it is possible to put a cable across a marine sanctuary right now. There was a law or a rule passed in 2002, I believe, that set up this special use permit. The problem is that it gave a 5-year special use permit, and these are 25-year-plus projects when you put one of these cables in.

Mr. Speaker, NOAA had the assignment to come up with what the lease cost would be to put these cables across a marine sanctuary. In all of NOAA's infinite wisdom, they came up with a price tag of $40,000 to $100,000 per mile, subject to inflation.

Nobody has gotten one of these permits. Nobody has put a cable across because this rule by the Federal Government has disincentivized all of these companies from being able to run cables. It seems that the purpose of the rule in the first place was just to keep cables out of the marine sanctuaries.

Mr. Speaker, if somebody were to put a cable through a marine sanctuary, they would still have to go through the NEPA process. They would have to go through the entire regulatory process to get a permit to put the cable across the sanctuary. It is not like you are throwing away all environmental oversight and all environmental guidelines to be able to bury one of these cables, or not bury but run it along the ocean floor.

Again, they are 1 inch to 2 inches in diameter. If you just looked at 1 mile at, say, 4 inches in diameter, that strip of land at a rate of $40,000 per mile would be the equivalent of a yearly rent of about $1 million per acre every year.

The whole rule and the law was stacked against doing anything, and that is exactly what has happened. We want to open this up where American companies can invest in American fiber cables so that we can communicate across the ocean and we can get away from all of this consolidation in one area where it is easy to target.

Mr. Speaker, the article featured behind me found that adversaries like Russia and China are taking disruptive action against undersea cables on a more frequent basis around the world. Here is an article just from yesterday talking about a Chinese cargo ship captain who has been charged with severing a natural gas pipeline and a communication cable in the Baltic Sea.

If we stick to the status quo, we are leaving ourselves more vulnerable to similar threats at our doorstep. Our adversaries are taking an increasingly aggressive posture in targeting critical infrastructure.

Congressman Carter's legislation promotes route diversity, reduces threats to global communication systems, and ensures that the United States wins this global technology race. That is why it is important that we pass this legislation and that we give companies the certainty that they can build these communication lines and diversify where they are locating them so that we can protect our economic security and also our national security.

This legislation before us today accomplishes two objectives:

First, it eliminates the requirement for undersea cables to obtain a special use permit for operating within national marine sanctuaries. Again, undersea cable projects would still need to undergo review under the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, and the Coastal Zone Management Act. None of that permitting is waived in this bill, and I would dare say anybody wanting to run one of these cables would say they are getting to do it and to avoid all environmental laws and protections. I don't think people running these cables want to do that.

Second, it removes the 5-year timeline for any special use permit within any national marine sanctuary. Together, these reforms reduce regulatory burdens. They protect our national security, and they ensure that America can lead the way in deploying undersea cables while protecting our marine environments.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Congressman Carter for his leadership on this issue. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source