House Homeland Security hearing flags gaps in subsea cable security, urges DHS role and faster repairs

Witnesses at a House Homeland Security subcommittee hearing said the United States benefits from abundant subsea cable capacity but lacks coherent federal leadership, legal deterrence and repair capacity to manage deliberate or accidental disruptions.

Alex Botting, senior director for global security and technology strategy at Venable, told the panel that “redundancy is resilience,” and that abundant cables and swift repairs limit the impact of any incident. Botting said roughly 70% of observed subsea cable disruptions are caused by human activity, but investigations rarely determine whether damage was accidental or malicious.

Kevin Frazier, an AI innovation and law fellow at the University of Texas School of Law, urged Congress to shape policy around deterrence — raising the cost of attacks, increasing the likelihood of detection and reducing the potential impact. Frazier cited the Submarine Cable Act and related penalties as outdated, noting that current fines cited in testimony are $5,000 and $500, and urged lawmakers to update penalties and conditioning landing licenses on modern sensing technologies or fees to support Coast Guard tracking.

Industry witness Mr. Strong said private companies have paid for much of the resilience — building diverse landing stations, burying cable in shallow areas, investing in sensing technologies and funding repair vessels — but that permitting delays and a fragmented interagency review process are discouraging investment. “We need one federal lead with a dual mandate to shepherd new cable projects through the permitting maze and to build a coherent national strategy for resilience,” he said.

Members pressed witnesses on several policy tools. Panelists offered a mix of recommendations: designate a single coordinating federal entity (witnesses commonly suggested Department of Homeland Security but mentioned NTIA or other options), create a two-way classified and unclassified threat-intelligence sharing mechanism, map the submarine-cable supply chain, update legal penalties dating back to the 19th century, fund U.S. cable repair ships and workforce training, and consider conditioned licensing to ensure sensing and monitoring capabilities.

Witnesses also debated cable protection zones, which concentrate routes to ease enforcement but risk creating a ‘bull’s-eye’ that could be attractive to adversaries if not paired with strong monitoring and prosecution. Several witnesses urged greater international cooperation to improve repair times and permitting in foreign waters, noting global averages of a month and a half to begin repairs and that some jurisdictions impose restrictive rules that delay repair ships.

Lawmakers raised budget and staffing concerns. Representative Patrick Magaziner (as named in the transcript) asked whether cuts at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and reassignments at DHS have weakened detection and deterrence. Witnesses replied that workforce capacity should scale with cable growth and that training for repair crews and investigators is a critical need.

On technical defenses, witnesses described new fiber-optic sensing systems that can detect touches, anchor drops and nearby ship activity. Industry representatives said they are hesitant to adopt some technologies without clearer permitting and regulatory guidance.

The hearing closed with bipartisan agreement that the issue requires urgent attention and strategic planning. The committee left the record open for 10 days to receive written follow-ups and additional material from witnesses.

The subcommittee adjourned without a formal vote on legislation; Members and witnesses were asked to submit written materials for the record.