The Secure Equipment Act has now cleared both the House and Senate, and is expected to land on President Biden’s desk for his signature shortly. […]

After Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., the committee’s ranking member, called for the designation of a single official to lead the U.S. response to the Russia-backed hack of thousands of government and private-sector networks via SolarWinds Orion products, the White House confirmed to the senators that Deputy National Security Advisor Anne Neuberger is leading the effort. […]

Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., the committee’s ranking member, are urging the Biden administration to “assign a clear leader” to lead the United States’ response to the Russia-backed hack of thousands of government and private-sector networks via SolarWinds Orion products. […]

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told Defense Secretary Mark Esper in a Nov. 6 letter that the Defense Department (DoD) must act quickly to weed out Chinese-made surveillance gear in use at DoD facilities. […]

Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Tom Cotton, R-Texas, and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., wrote to Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Aug. 7 questioning the tech giant’s ties to China. […]

Sens. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., Cory Gardner, R-Colo., Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.V., reintroduced the Advancing Innovation and Reinvigorating Widespread Access to Viable Electromagnetic Spectrum (AIRWAVES) Act on July 23. The legislation will “encourage the Federal government to continue to free up spectrum for commercial licensed and unlicensed use and leverage the success of spectrum auctions to help close the urban-rural divide,” according to the bill’s sponsors. […]

The House on July 15 approved two bills that aim to bolster Small Business Administration (SBA) cybersecurity, and help small businesses combat cyberattacks. […]

Small businesses are more likely to lack resources to build robust cybersecurity capabilities, but Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., are looking to address that challenge with their recently introduced Small Business Cybersecurity Assistance Act. […]

President Donald Trump declared a “national emergency” when he signed an executive order (EO) on May 15 that would grant Federal authority to prohibit the adoption of foreign adversaries’ telecom suppliers. Though the order was signed only a day ago, both legislators and trade groups have already weighed in and the EO has received mostly positive reviews. […]

Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., on April 3 introduced an updated version of their Defending Elections from Threats by Establishing Redlines Act (DETER Act), which they said promises “swift and severe consequences” to Russia and other “foreign actors” if they attack U.S. political candidates, campaigns, or voting infrastructure. […]

The Senate Small Business Committee unanimously approved two bills that aim to bolster small business cybersecurity yesterday. […]

While opening a Senate Small Business Committee hearing on cybercrimes against small businesses today, committee Chairman Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., announced his rollout of two pieces of legislation which would aim to create greater accountability at the Small Business Administration (SBA) and to expand small business cybersecurity awareness and training resources. […]

In a letter dated Feb. 27, Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., requested Dan Coats, director of National Intelligence, produce “an unclassified report on the participation of China and other adversarial nations in the international standard setting bodies (ISSBs) for fifth-generation wireless telecommunications technologies (5G).” […]

A bipartisan group of senators urged Trump administration officials in a letter dated today to ban the use of inverter equipment made by China-based Huawei from the U.S. electric grid, citing the same cybersecurity concerns that led Congress to block Huawei network equipment from the U.S. market because of firm’s alleged links to Chinese intelligence services. […]

Sens. Mark Warner, D.-Va., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., introduced legislation on Friday to create an Office of Critical Technologies & Security at the White House to coordinate action across Federal agencies and develop a “whole of government” strategy to combat theft of U.S. technologies by state actors including China, and to reduce risks to “critical supply chains.” […]

Senators Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., asked the chief executive officer of Super Micro Computer in an Oct. 9 letter whether the company has ever found evidence of tampering of components or firmware that targeted the company’s products, among other questions stemming from a Bloomberg Businessweek article reporting that chips made by a Chinese firm and allegedly used by numerous U.S. companies and government agencies were engineered to enable backdoor data transmissions to China.  […]

Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., this week introduced legislation that would take several steps to curb the ability of Chinese companies to impact the U.S. technology supply chain and profit from alleged theft of U.S. intellectual property. […]

By a vote of 87-10, the Senate today approved the FY2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and the corresponding conference report that ironed out differences between House and Senate versions of the bill. The legislation to fund the Defense Department (DoD) and U.S. armed forces now moves to President Trump’s desk for his signature. […]

As the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY2019 makes its way through the House-Senate conference process, Senate Republicans today agreed to drop their ban on China-based communications equipment maker ZTE in favor of the House’s more lenient version of that measure. […]

Welcome to MeriTalk News Briefs, where we bring you all the day’s action that didn’t quite make the headlines. No need to shout about ‘em, but we do feel that they merit talk. […]

Several members of Congress in a June 20 letter urged Google to “reconsider” its business relationship with China-based communications equipment maker Huawei, saying that the partnership between the two companies “could pose a serious risk to U.S. national security and American consumers” because of Huawei’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party, which led U.S. intelligence agencies earlier this year to urge Americans not to use Huawei products and services. […]

Open data supporters have expressed trepidation over a new House bill that states Federal agencies will no longer be able to use geospatial information to create open databases on racial disparities and affordable housing. […]