The bill
Secure Space Act of 2025
HR. 2458, 119th Congress — read as touching Telecommunications.
Sponsored by
Rep. Pallone, Frank [D-NJ-6]
ID: P000034
Follow the money
The bill
HR. 2458, 119th Congress — read as touching Telecommunications.
The sponsor
Every bill has someone who introduced it. That name is where the paper trail starts.
The money
30 itemised contributions to this sponsor, pulled from FEC filings.
The alignment
This bill's text tracks the "Financial Regulatory Agencies" section, p. 879-881 of the Mandate for Leadership.
Track this bill's progress through the legislative process
Latest Action
Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
April 28, 2025
📍 Current Status
Next: Both chambers must agree on the same version of the bill.
1. Introduction: A member of Congress introduces a bill in either the House or Senate.
2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.
3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.
4. Other Chamber: If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber (House or Senate) for the same process.
5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.
7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Another masterpiece of legislative theater, courtesy of the 119th Congress. The "Secure Space Act of 2025" – because what's more secure than a bill with a title that sounds like it was written by a middle schooler trying to sound cool?
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The main purpose of this bill is to prohibit the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from granting licenses or market access to satellite systems controlled by entities that produce or provide certain communications equipment or services. In other words, Congress wants to pretend it's concerned about national security and "secure" our space-based communications.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill amends the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act of 2019 (because one secure-sounding law wasn't enough) by adding a new section that prohibits the FCC from granting licenses or market access to entities that produce or provide covered communications equipment or services. It also defines terms like "blanket-licensed earth station" and "gateway station," because who doesn't love a good game of bureaucratic bingo?
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The affected parties include satellite system operators, telecommunications companies, and anyone else who might be interested in accessing the US market with their space-based communications equipment. But let's be real, this bill is really about protecting the interests of a select few – namely, the telecom giants that have been lobbying Congress for years to restrict competition.
**Potential Impact & Implications:** The potential impact of this bill is to stifle innovation and limit access to the US market for smaller players in the satellite industry. But hey, who needs competition when you can just legislate it away? The real implication here is that Congress is once again prioritizing the interests of its corporate donors over those of the American people.
Diagnosis: This bill is suffering from a bad case of "Lobbyist-itis" – a disease characterized by an excessive influence of special interest groups on legislative decision-making. Symptoms include a complete disregard for the public interest, a lack of transparency, and a healthy dose of hypocrisy. Treatment involves a strong dose of sunlight, accountability, and a willingness to actually represent the people who elected you.
Prognosis: Poor. This bill will likely pass with flying colors, thanks to the tireless efforts of its corporate sponsors and the complicity of our esteemed lawmakers. But hey, at least we can take comfort in knowing that our space-based communications are "secure" – or at least, as secure as a Congress-approved firewall can make them.
Rep. Pallone, Frank [D-NJ-6]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
No PAC contributions found
No committee contributions found
This bill has 1 cosponsors. Below are their top campaign contributors.
ID: G000558
Top Contributors
21
Hub layout: Politicians in center, donors arranged by type in rings around them.
Showing 60 nodes and 79 connections
Total contributions: $79
Showing top 23 donors by contribution amount
Which industries are materially affected by specific provisions in this bill. 2 harmed.
Section 2(a)(2) adds a prohibition on FCC granting satellite licenses or market access if held/controlled by an entity that produces or provides covered communications equipment or service, or its affiliate. This directly restricts telecom companies that provide satellite communications services (e.g., satellite broadband, earth stations) from obtaining licenses if they are deemed to produce covered equipment, imposing a regulatory cost.
Same provision affects large tech firms that provide satellite-based communications (e.g., Amazon's Kuiper, SpaceX's Starlink) if they are considered to produce covered communications equipment or services. The ban on licensing if controlled by such entities imposes a clear cost on their ability to operate satellite systems in the U.S. market.
For each industry this bill affects, here's what the sponsor (Rep. Pallone, Frank [D-NJ-6])received from donors associated with that industry during the 2022–present cycles. Donations are not proof of intent — they are a record of who funds the people writing the law.
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document.AI-enhanced analysis provides detailed alignment ratings.
AI Analysis:
"The bill directly supports the Project 2025 FCC policy priority of promoting national security by restricting FCC licensing of satellite systems tied to foreign entities that could pose security threats, aligning closely with that goal."
— 847 — Federal Communications Commission The FCC has facilitated the transition from 3G to 4G and now 5G offerings in two ways. First, it has freed spectrum—the airwaves needed to deliver wireless ser- vices. Second, it has preempted state and local siting and permitting laws that could otherwise slow down the buildout of next-generation infrastructure. One of the FCC’s great success stories from 2017 to 2020 was securing U.S. leadership in 5G. The FCC also administers an approximately roughly $9 billion-a-year program called the Universal Service Fund (USF), which has been funded by a line-item charge that traditional telephone companies add to consumers’ monthly bills. Expenditures from this fund subsidize rural broadband networks and low-income programs as well as connections for schools, libraries, and rural health care facil- ities. Through various COVID-era laws, Congress has also provided the FCC with a one-time $24 billion appropriation for various low-income initiatives. POLICY PRIORITIES The FCC needs to change course and bring new urgency to achieving four main goals: l Reining in Big Tech, l Promoting national security, l Unleashing economic prosperity, and l Ensuring FCC accountability and good governance.15 Reining in Big Tech. The FCC has an important role to play in addressing the threats to individual liberty posed by corporations that are abusing dominant positions in the market. Nowhere is that clearer than when it comes to Big Tech and its attempts to drive diverse political viewpoints from the digital town square. Today, a handful of corporations can shape everything from the information we consume to the places we shop. These corporate behemoths are not merely exercising market power; they are abusing dominant positions. They are not simply prevailing in the free market; they are taking advantage of a landscape that has been skewed—in many cases by the government—to favor their business models over those of their competitors. It is hard to imagine another industry in which a greater gap exists between power and accountability. That is why a new Adminis- tration should support FCC action on several fronts. Specifically, the FFC should: l Eliminate immunities that courts added to Section 230. The FCC should issue an order that interprets Section 230 in a way that eliminates the expansive, non-textual immunities that courts have read into the statute. — 848 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise As one of the FCC’s previous General Counsels noted, the FCC has authority to take this action because Section 230 is codified in the Communications Act.16 The FCC’s Section 230 reforms should track the positions outlined in a July 2020 Petition for Rulemaking filed at the FCC near the end of the Trump Administration.17 Any new presidential Administration should consider filing a similar or new petition. As Justice Clarence Thomas has made clear, courts have construed Section 230 broadly to confer on some of the world’s largest companies a sweeping immunity that is found nowhere in the text of the statute.18 They have done so in a way that nullifies the limits Congress placed on the types of actions that Internet companies can take while continuing to benefit from Section 230. One way to start correcting this error is for the FCC to remind courts how the various portions of Section 230 operate. At the outset, the FCC can clarify that Section 230(c)(1) does not apply broadly to every decision that a platform makes. Rather, its protections apply only when a platform does not remove information provided by someone else. In contrast, the FCC should clarify that the more limited Section 230(c)(2) protections apply to any covered platform’s decision to restrict access to material provided by someone else. Combined, these actions will appropriately limit the number of cases in which a platform can censor with the benefit of Section 230’s protections. Such clarifications might also include drawing out the traditional legal distinction between distributor and publisher liability; Section 230 did not do away with the former, nor does it collapse into the latter. l Impose transparency rules on Big Tech. Today, Big Tech offers a black box. After Google manipulates search results, a small business can see its web traffic drop precipitously overnight for no apparent reason, potentially flipping its outlook from black to red. On Facebook, social media posts are left up or taken down, accounts suspended or permanently banned, without any apparent consistency. Out of the blue, YouTube can demonetize individuals who have risked their capital and invested their labor to build online businesses. At present, the FCC requires broadband providers to comply with a transparency rule that can provide a good baseline for Big Tech. Under the FCC’s rule, broadband providers must provide detailed disclosures about practices that would shape Internet traffic—from blocking to prioritizing or discriminating against content. The FCC could take a similar approach to
AI Analysis:
"The bill aligns closely with Project 2025's FCC policy focus on national security, restricting foreign adversary influence in communications infrastructure, and enhancing oversight of equipment and services deemed risky, particularly through licensing restrictions tied to national security concerns."
— 858 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise ENDNOTES 1. 47 U.S.C. § 151, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/151 (accessed January 23, 2023). 2. 47 U.S.C. § 154, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/154 (accessed January 23, 2023). 3. Ibid. 4. 47 U.S.C. § 154(c). 5. 47 U.S.C. § 154(b)(5). 6. 47 U.S.C. § 155(a), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/155 (accessed January 23, 2023). 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid. There are no limits on the President’s authority to designate a different Chairperson from among the existing Commissioners. Further, though it is an open question, it is generally believed that the judiciary would impose limits on the power of the President to remove a Commissioner during his or her five-year term. The question is not settled because Congress did not include an express “for cause” or similar protection against removal in the Communications Act itself. Scholars assume this is because Congress passed the Communications Act in the years between the Supreme Court’s decision in Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52 (1926) and Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602 (1935), when it was not entirely clear that Congress could impose a limit on the President’s removal power. However, the Communications Act was significantly amended in 1996, and Congress did not add “just cause” or other protections from removal at that time. Considering the high-profile contemporary debates about the appointment and removal of independent counsels under the Independent Counsel Act, one could reasonably assume that Congress was aware of removal powers and protections for presidentially appointed and Senate-confirmed officials. 9. Chart, “FTEs—Historical and Estimated, Fiscal Years 1986–2023,” in U.S. Federal Communications Commission, 2023 Budget Estimates to Congress, March 2022, p. 17, https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-381693A1. pdf (accessed January 23, 2023). 10. U.S. Federal Communications Commission, 2023 Budget Estimates to Congress, p. 7. 11. Roslyn Layton, “Spectrum Auctions Have Raised $230 Billion; The FCC’s Authority to Conduct Them Will Lapse Soon If Congress Doesn’t Act,” Forbes, April 29, 2022, https://www.forbes.com/sites/ roslynlayton/2022/04/29/spectrum-auctions-have-raised-230-billion-the-fccs-authority-to-conduct-them- will-lapse-soon-if-congress-doesnt-act/?sh=4d32066908eb (accessed January 23, 2023). 12. For a full listing of the FCC’s Bureaus and Offices, along with their functions and an organization chart, see U.S. Federal Communications Commission, “Organizational Charts of the FCC,” https://www.fcc.gov/about-fcc/ organizational-charts-fcc (accessed January 23, 2023). 13. 47 U.S.C. § 230, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230 (accessed January 23, 2023). 14. Thomas M. Johnson Jr., “The FCC’s Authority to Interpret Section 230 of the Communications Act,” October 21, 2020, https://www.fcc.gov/news-events/blog/2020/10/21/fccs-authority-interpret-section-230- communications-act (accessed January 23, 2023). 15. This chapter does not purport to set forth a comprehensive agenda for the FCC. Rather, it focuses on a selected handful of issue areas that may quickly rise to the attention of a new Administration. Similarly, not every contributor to this chapter agrees with every policy idea included here; this document attempts to reflect a range of views and perspectives. 16. Johnson, “The FCC’s Authority to Interpret Section 230 of the Communications Act.” 17. U.S. Department of Commerce, National Telecommunications and Information Administration, “NTIA Petition for Rulemaking to Clarify Provisions of Section 230 of the Communications Act,” July 27, 2020, https:// ntia.gov/fcc-filing/ntia-petition-rulemaking-clarify-provisions-section-230-communications-act (accessed January 23, 2023). 18. Malwarebytes, Inc. v. Enigma Software, 592 U.S. ___ (2020) (Thomas, J., statement respecting the denial of certiorari), https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-1284_869d.pdf (accessed January 23, 2023). 19. See 47 U.S.C. § 230; see also Ray Baum’s Act of 2018, Division P, Title IV, § 401 (codifying the Consolidated Reporting Act), in H.R. 1625, Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018, Public Law No. 115-141, 115th Congress, March 23, 2018, https://www.congress.gov/115/plaws/publ141/PLAW-115publ141.pdf (accessed January 23, 2023). 20. NetChoice, L.L.C. v. Paxton, 49 F.4th 439 (5th Cir. 2022), https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/ gdpzqyobyvw/alisonn%201.pdf (accessed January 23, 2023). — 859 — Federal Communications Commission 21. Hal J. Singer and Ted Tatos, Subsidizing Universal Broadband Through a Digital Advertising Services Fee: An Alignment of Incentives, Econ One, September 2021, p. 1 (“[T]he current USF mechanism is unsustainable and will fail to meet the needs of its target consumer base within the next five years.”), https://www.econone.com/ wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Digital-Divide-HSinger-TTatos-2.pdf (accessed January 23, 2023). 22. FBI Director Christopher Wray, testimony in video of hearing, Worldwide Threats to the Homeland, Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives, November 15, 2022, at 02:27, https://democrats- homeland.house.gov/activities/hearings/11/04/2022/worldwide-threats-to-the-homeland (accessed January 23, 2023); John D. McKinnon, Arunav Viswanatha, and Stu Woo, “TikTok National-Security Deal Faces More Delays as Worry Grows Over Risks,” The Wall Street Journal, updated December 6, 2022, https://www.wsj. com/articles/tiktok-national-security-deal-faces-more-delays-as-worry-grows-over-risks-11670342800 (accessed January 23, 2023). 23. U.S. Federal Communications Commission, “List of Equipment and Services Covered by Section 2 of the Secure Networks Act,” updated September 20, 2022, https://www.fcc.gov/supplychain/coveredlist (accessed January 23, 2023). 24. H.R. 820, Foreign Adversary Communications Transparency Act, 118th Congress, introduced February 2, 2023, https://www.congress.gov/118/bills/hr820/BILLS-118hr820ih.pdf (accessed March 6, 2023). 25. U.S. Department of State, “The Clean Network,” https://2017-2021.state.gov/the-clean-network/index.html (accessed January 23, 2023). 26. U.S. Government Accountability Office, Broadband: National Strategy Needed to Guide Federal Efforts to Reduce Digital Divide, GAO-22-104611, May 2022, https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-22-104611.pdf (accessed January 23, 2023). 27. Document No. 144, “Federal Communications Commission: Message from the President of the United States Recommending that Congress Create a New Agency to be Known as the Federal Communications Commission,” U.S. Senate, 73rd Cong., 2nd Sess., February 26, 1934, https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/ DOC-298207A1.pdf (accessed January 23, 2023). 28. 47 U.S.C, Chapter 5, §§ 151 et seq., (accessed March 6, 2023).
AI Analysis:
"The bill and the Project 2025 FCC section both focus on using FCC authority to protect U.S. communications infrastructure from foreign adversary influence, particularly China, aligning on national security and safeguarding critical telecom/satellite assets."
— 853 — Federal Communications Commission are doing this is by giving Beijing access to their high-powered cloud computing services. Therefore, it is time for an Administration to put in place a comprehensive plan that aims to stop U.S. entities from directly or indirectly contributing to China’s malign AI goals. Unleashing Economic Prosperity. The FCC needs to advance a pro-growth agenda that gives every American a fair shot at next-generation connectivity. This is vital for economic opportunity and prosperous communities. The current Administration has appropriated a lot of money for broadband infrastructure proj- ects, but it has failed to pair that spending with reforms that free more airwaves for wireless connectivity or streamline the permitting processes for broadband builds. That failure is holding back America’s hardworking telecommunications crews and leaving Americans stuck waiting on the wrong side of the digital divide. It is time for a return to the successful spectrum and infrastructure policies that prevailed during the Trump Administration—policies that enabled the U.S. to lead the world in 5G. l Refill America’s spectrum pipeline. From 2017 through 2020, the FCC took unprecedented steps to free the airwaves needed to power 5G and other next-generation wireless services. This work not only helped to secure America’s wireless leadership and bolster competition, but also enabled the private sector to create jobs and grow the economy. Recently, the FCC has failed to match the pace and cadence of those spectrum actions. Therefore, the FCC and a new Administration should work together to develop a national spectrum strategy that both identifies the specific airwaves that the FCC can free for commercial wireless services and sets an aggressive timeline for agency action. l Facilitate coordination on spectrum issues. Wireless services now play a central role in advancing America’s economic and national security interests. Over the past few years, this dynamic has led to an increasing number of headline-level disputes between the commercial wireless sector and federal agencies. These disputes are often framed in zero-sum terms as commercial wireless and federal agency stakeholders argue over the appropriate types and amount of airwaves that the government should allocate for various purposes. On the one hand, America’s global economic leadership depends on its ability to free spectrum that will power the U.S. commercial wireless industry. On the other hand, we must ensure that America’s national security and other federal agencies have access to the spectrum resources that they need to carry out their vital missions. — 854 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise It is clear that the current process is not delivering optimal outcomes. In December 2021 and January 2022, for instance, the lack of interagency coordination and communication about mid-band 5G spectrum allocation between the FCC and the Federal Aviation Authority led to significant challenges for the U.S. aviation industry. Over the past two years, the FCC has failed to move spectrum into the commercial marketplace at the same pace and cadence that it did in the recent past. Creating better mechanisms to improve communication and cooperation between different federal agencies could enable a more effective and coordinated U.S. government telecommunications strategy. The White House should work with Congress to establish a spectrum coordination process that will work for both commercial and federal users. l Modernize infrastructure rules. By 2016, the construction of new cell sites—the building blocks for 5G—had essentially flatlined in America. Because of outdated permitting rules, it cost too much and took too long to build wireless infrastructure, so the FCC went to work. The agency updated the environmental and historic preservation rules that needlessly drove up the cost and slowed down the timeline for adding small cells. The FCC put in place guardrails to address outlier fees and delays imposed at the state and local levels on those same small-cell projects. It modernized the permitting process in several additional ways as well. Those FCC reforms delivered results. They allowed America’s private sector to bring thousands of families across the digital divide and to keep Americans connected during the pandemic. In fact, infrastructure builds accelerated at a record pace after those reforms. In 2019, for instance, U.S. providers built over 46,000 new cell sites—a sixty-fivefold increase over 2016 levels. The FCC has not engaged in any similar infrastructure reforms in recent years, and there is much more that needs to be done. For instance, the FCC’s prior reforms focused on streamlining the rules for small wireless facilities. The FCC should now explore similar action for the deployment of other wired infrastructure by imposing limits on the fees that local and state governments can charge for reviewing those wireline applications and time restrictions on the government’s decision-making process. The next Administration should also work to address the delays that continue to persist when it comes to building Internet infrastructure on federal lands. This is an area where the FCC itself has very little jurisdiction,
Showing 3 of 5 policy matches
Policy matches are calculated using a hybrid approach: initial candidates are found using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text, then an AI model (Llama 3.1 70B) provides detailed alignment ratings and analysis. Ratings range from 1 (minimal alignment) to 5 (very strong alignment). This analysis does not imply direct causation or intent.
To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 2407 State Route 71, Suite 1, in Spring Lake, New Jersey, as the James J. Howard Post Office.
119/hr/1431
To redesignate certain facilities at Paterson Great Falls National Historical Park in honor of Congressman Bill Pascrell, Jr.
119/hr/249
To reauthorize and make improvements to Federal programs relating to the prevention, detection, and treatment of traumatic brain injuries, and for other purposes.
119/hr/1493