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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 158 / Thursday, August 19, 2021 / Proposed Rules parties in identifying equipment that can no longer be processed through the SDoC process while also ensuring that responsible parties are held accountable, by their compliance statement, for any misrepresentations or violation of the prohibition that the Commission is proposing. The Commission notes that current rules require that the responsible party be located within the United States. 47
CFR 2.1077a3. As discussed above regarding equipment subject to the certification process, should the Commission also require that the compliance statement include the name of a U.S. agent for service of process if different from the responsible party?
What steps should the Commission take to help inform responsible parties that use the SDoC process of this proposed prohibition, as well as the requirement that any equipment including component parts produced or provided by entities and their subsidiaries and affiliates that produce or provide covered equipment must be subject to the equipment certification process? The Commission notes that the rules allow many entities to take on the role of a responsible party under the part 2 rules, including retailers and parties performing modifications to equipment. The Commission seeks comment on how best to ensure that all responsible parties that use the SDoC
processes to enable importing or marketing of equipment in the United States will understand and comply with the Commissions proposed revisions with respect to equipment produced or provided by entities that produce or provide covered equipment on the Covered List. What types of actions or activities e.g., outreach and education to equipment manufacturers, assemblers, importers, retailers, parties performing modification under certain circumstances, and others that serve as responsible parties and use the SDoC
process regarding particular equipment would be advised and most helpful?
Should the Commission impose a similar requirement with respect to existing authorizations obtained through the SDoC process? If so, how would the Commission do so? If not, how should the Commission address the difficulty of obtaining service of process on certain foreign-based equipment manufacturers?
As noted above, the Commission can specifically request that the responsible parties provide information on any equipment to the Commission that has been authorized through the SDoC
process. Under the Commissions proposal, in an effort to ensure that responsible parties are complying with
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the prohibition, the Commission would exercise its equipment authorization oversight, as appropriate, in requesting that the responsible parties provide informatione.g., an equipment sample, representative data demonstrating compliance, and the compliance statement itselfregarding particular equipment to the Commission. The Commission seeks comment on what kinds of situations in which such requests might be appropriate. What kinds of information might inform the Commissions consideration as to whether any equipment may have been inappropriately processed through the SDoC process, thus triggering the Commissions request for information from the responsible party to make sure that no violation of the Commissions prohibition has occurred?
As the Commission has discussed, PSHSB will periodically publish updates to identify the covered equipment on the Covered List. As with the equipment certification proposals above, the Commission would direct that OET expeditiously take all the appropriate steps e.g., updating as necessary the information that SDoC
applicants must make to establish that no newly identified covered equipment is associated with the application to reflect those updates, consistent with the rules and procedures that the Commission ultimately adopts regarding the SDoC
rules in this proceeding. The Commission invites comment on appropriate means for OET to include updates of the covered equipment in an expeditious fashion in ways that best ensure that applicants, responsible parties, and other interested parties will comply with the prohibitions that the Commission has proposed.
Finally, the Commission seeks comment on whether there are other rule revisions or clarifications to the SDoC rules and processes that the Commission should make consistent with the goals to prohibit authorization of covered equipment. Commenters should explain their suggestions in sufficient detail, including the reasoning behind the suggestions and associated issues e.g., implementation.
d. Legal Authority Adopting rules that take security into consideration in the equipment authorization process would serve the public interest by addressing significant national security risks that have been identified by this Commission in other proceedings, and by Congress and other federal agencies, and doing so would be consistent with the Commissions
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statutory purpose of regulating interstate and foreign commerce in communication by wire and radio . . .
for the purpose of the national defense and for the purpose of promoting safety of life and property through the use of wire and radio communications.
47 U.S.C. 151. The Commission tentatively concludes that doing so is not specifically authorized by the Secure Networks Act itself, pursuant to which the Commission adopted the Covered List. However, the Commission has broad authority to adopt rules, not inconsistent with the Communications Act, as may be necessary in the execution of its functions. 47 U.S.C.
154i. The Commission believes that, in order to ensure that the Commissions rules under the Secure Networks Act effectively preclude use of equipment on the Covered List by USF recipients as contemplated by Congress, it is necessary to rely on the Commissions established equipment authorization procedures to restrict further equipment authorization, and the importation and marketing, of such devices in the first instance. As discussed above, the Commission also relies on the equipment authorization process to implement other statutory duties, including the duty to promote efficient use of the radio spectrum, the duties under the National Environmental Policy Act to regulate human RF
exposure, the Commissions duty to ensure that mobile handsets are compatible with hearing aids, and the duty to deny federal benefits to certain individuals who have been convicted multiple times of federal offenses related to trafficking in or possession of controlled substances. The Commission believes that these processes can and should also serve the purpose of fulfilling other Commission responsibilities under the Secure Networks Act, and the Commission seeks comment on that issue.
The Commission also believes that other authorities in the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, provide authority for the Commission to rely on for the proposed modifications to its rules and procedures governing equipment authorization. Since Congress added section 302 to the Act, the Commissions part 2 equipment authorization rules and processes have served to ensure that RF equipment marketed, sold, imported, and used in the United States complies with the applicable rules governing use of such equipment. See Equipment Authorization of RF Devices, Docket No.
19356, Report and Order, 39 FR 5912, 5912, para. 2 1970. That section
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