Foreign Adversary Communications Transparency Act

The bill would direct the FCC to publish on its website a list of entities holding certain FCC licenses where a "covered entity" — meaning a foreign adversary government or a company organized under its laws, including subsidiaries — holds a reportable ownership or voting interest, or has been determined by a national security agency to exert control. The initial list, due within 120 days of enactment, would cover holders of cable landing licenses (for submarine communications cables) and licenses granted through competitive spectrum auctions. The FCC would also have 18 months to issue rules gathering ownership information from all other categories of FCC licensees, and then one additional year to incorporate those entities into the same published list.

The bill would not revoke any licenses or impose penalties on listed entities — it is a transparency and disclosure measure only. The FCC would be required to update the list at least annually. A Paperwork Reduction Act exemption is included to streamline the information-gathering process.

FCC licensees with foreign adversary ownership ties — including holders of cable landing licenses, spectrum auction licenses, broadcast licenses, and other FCC authorizations — whose ownership information would be publicly disclosed. National security agencies tasked with making control determinations would also play a role. Telecom investors, researchers, journalists, and policymakers would gain access to the published list.

If enacted, the public list would allow policymakers, regulators, journalists, and the public to identify which companies operating on U.S. communications infrastructure have financial or governance ties to adversary governments. This visibility could inform further regulatory action, congressional oversight, or national security reviews — though the bill itself would not directly force any license revocations or ownership changes.

The FCC would first publish a list within 120 days covering cable landing and auction licensees already subject to ownership reporting rules. Simultaneously, the agency would undertake a separate rulemaking — due within 18 months — to design a process for collecting ownership data from all remaining FCC authorization holders. One year after those rules are finalized, the agency would expand the published list to include those entities. National security agencies would feed control determinations into the process for the initial category. The FCC must update the full list at least once per year. A Paperwork Reduction Act exemption removes one procedural hurdle from the information-collection rulemaking.