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Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today--and you certainly know this as a Navy SEAL, that life would be very different without the internet. It raises an important question: How does the internet get into our homes? For most users around the world, the internet travels to them from the ocean floor. More specifically, it travels through fragile, largely unprotected fiber optic cables that sit on the ocean floor. They are called undersea cables, and hundreds of these cables crisscross the world's seabed. On average, they rest about 8,000 feet below sea level. They are essential, and they are exposed.

Stretched end to end, these cables would reach nearly 1 million miles. That is far greater than the distance the Artemis II traveled from the Earth to the Moon and back again.

Here on Earth, the undersea cables are important for a variety of reasons. They carry 99 percent of the world's internet traffic. They also support $10 trillion in financial transactions each and every day. Undersea cables are essential for our economy, our military, our communications, and our daily lives.

I am a doctor, and a map of these undersea cables reminds me of an anatomy textbook when you look at this thing, Mr. President, and you see all of these cables all around the globe. A map of these undersea cables reminds me specifically of my time in medical school and the nervous system.

Here is how I see it: Imagine that the Earth is a human body and undersea cables are the nervous system of modern life. All of these connections make the world more prosperous, and it is especially true as America develops innovative, new technology.

Yet there is a serious problem. The world's undersea cable network is facing growing threats from our foes around the world. Specifically, the danger comes from Russia and China. Our adversaries seek to hold our connectivity hostage. They are trying to do so by mapping, by splicing, and by sabotaging our system of undersea cables. This can be done simply by dragging an anchor across the cables or having submarines attack them.

China has been especially aggressive, specifically regarding Taiwan. According to Taiwan's own National Security Bureau, over the last 4 years, there have been over 30 subsea cable incidents. In one, Chinese vessels allegedly cut cables to the Matsu Islands. They are controlled by Taiwan. The islands are connected to the rest of the world by two tiny undersea cables. Both of the cables were cut. It took months--yes, months--to repair them and to restore connectivity to the rest of the world. Such operations disconnect and disrupt communications, and they undermine national defense and global security.

Not every instance of cable cutting is deliberate. We do know that cable-cutting incidents are becoming more frequent and increasingly more suspicious.

So what can we do to prevent them? For the past several years, NATO has responded with military patrols. These ongoing missions have been successful. Still, more needs to be done, and the next step is to target bad actors and do it economically.

Today, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations is--right at this moment--holding a hearing on recent attacks against critical infrastructure, and this includes undersea cables. It also includes energy pipelines.

I am a member of the committee, and Senator Shaheen and I have introduced legislation to address these vulnerabilities. It is called the Strategic Subsea Cables Act. It is a bipartisan bill. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed it in January by an overwhelming margin.

Our bill mandates tough penalties against individuals and vessels that attack these undersea cables. The penalties include blocking violators from our markets and revoking their U.S. visas. Our bill also has America deploy more resources to secure and repair underseas cables. At the same time, it requires a report to Congress in 6 months specifically on what Russia is doing and what China is doing in terms of sabotaging the undersea cables. These actions put our adversaries on notice that their actions are going to face stiff and severe consequences.

Private companies are already hardening cables where they can. Congress ought to act as a backstop in these defenses and make them more deliberate in terms of this aggression we are seeing from China and Russia. These are nations whose goal is to harm America, to harm our allies, to undermine our national security.

As a doctor, what I know is that if there is damage to a single fragile nerve cell, it can cause serious disruption to the entire body. America depends on a fragile nervous system of subsea cables for our modern life, and protecting this system is crucial.

Our adversaries seek to turn the bottom of the ocean into a battlefield. The Strategic Subsea Cables Act will make America safer and more secure in our network under the waves.

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