Congress Big tech Regulates an input
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
MechanismSubsea fibre is the physical link between regions of every large network, and removing a permitting step for laying and repairing it changes what that capacity costs to build and how long it takes to restore.
So whatInstalling, repairing or recovering undersea fiber optic cables in a national marine sanctuary would stop requiring a fresh authorization where one has already been given, which is a permitting step removed from the path of the cable itself.
Scheduled for a votescheduled, and the House can revise it
The House published this measure on the schedule for the week of 9 February 2026. That is a week the House said it may take the measure up, not a date it did. The schedule gets revised, and weeks in this archive have been withdrawn outright.
The text the House posted at docs.house.gov ↗Selection rule: Read by hand from the floor schedule. A rule resolution spells out the bill it sets terms for, so H. Res. 1042 carries the description of H.R. 261 that the bill's own one-line entry, "Undersea Cable Protection Act of 2025", does not.
U.S. House of Representatives H. Res. 1042, 119th Congress H. Res. 1042 scheduled 2026-02-09 docs.house.gov ↗ taken up on the schedulesponsored by Rep. Langworthy, Nicholas A. [R-NY-23]
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