WASHINGTON, DC - Chairman Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) is seen during a House Energy and Commerce ... [+] Subcommittee on Health hearing to discuss protecting scientific integrity in response to the coronavirus outbreak on Thursday, May 14, 2020. in Washington, DC. (Photo by Greg Nash-Pool/Getty Images)

Congresswoman Anna Eshoo (CA-18) was first elected to Congress in 1992. She has served on the Energy and Commerce Committee since 1995 with a focus on health and technology. Last year she became the first woman ever to serve as Chair of the Health Subcommittee. She has authored 41 bills signed into law by four presidents. I was able to speak to Congresswoman Eshoo about her recent accomplishment and her agenda for AI, cybersecurity, and medical supply chains.

RL: Representative Eshoo, thank you for your bipartisan leadership to create a national strategy to end dependence of foreign manufacturing of lifesaving drugs. What is the status of this bill? What can your experience from pharmaceuticals supply chain security teach us about other critical areas for supply chain security, such as information technology?

Ive championed the need to address our nations overreliance on the foreign production of critical drugs in Congress. Last September, I co-authored a Washington Post Op-Ed about our dangerous and troubling reliance on China for the manufacturing of drugs and their ingredients. Soon after, I held a hearing in my Health Subcommittee about the consequences and complications of our global drug supply chain. On May 1st I introduced bipartisan legislation, the Prescription for American Drug Independence Act, which requires the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to convene a committee of experts to analyze the impact of U.S. dependence on the manufacturing of lifesaving drugs and make recommendations to Congress within 90 days to ensure the U.S. has a diverse drug supply chain to adequately protect our country from natural or hostile occurrences. The legislation was included in the House-passed Heroes Act and I look forward to the Senate taking it up.

You are correct to note that an overreliance on China is not unique to the drug supply chain. For a decade Ive raised how the vulnerabilities in our telecommunications infrastructure directly impact our national security. On November 2, 2010, I wrote to the FCC expressing grave concerns about Huawei and ZTE, which have opaque entanglements with the Chinese government. Sadly, in the intervening decade Huawei and ZTE equipment has proliferated across our country because its cheap, due to the Chinese government subsidizing them. Weve passed several important measures this Congress that Im proud to support, including measures to create a mechanism for the federal government to exclude Huawei and ZTE equipment from our networks and to establish a program to rip and replace existing equipment made by the companies.

RL: It was great to see bipartisan and bicameral support for the National AI Research Resource Task Force Act under your leadership These are much-needed policies measures. What else do we need to do on this front? What is are your objectives in this area for the next Congress?

Im very proud of the smart tech-related provisions in the House-passed H.R. 6395, the William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, or the NDAA.

The Global Al Index indicates that the U.S. is ahead of China in the global AI race today but experts predict China will overtake the U.S. in just five to 10 years. Im pleased that the NDAA includes several important AI efforts, including my bipartisan and bicameral legislation, H.R. 7096, the National AI Research Resource Task Force Act, which establishes a task force to develop a roadmap for a national AI research cloud to make available high-powered computing, large data sets, and educational resources necessary for AI research.

You ask what else is needed in addition to these provisions. In AI, the answer is federal R&D funding. Earlier this year, I wrote to the House Appropriations Committee urging them to allocate robust funding for nondefense AI R&D, and seventeen of my House colleagues joined my letter. This funding is an important investment in our countrys future and must be a priority.

On cybersecurity, Im pleased the NDAA included a number of recommendations from the Cyberspace Solarium Commission which Congress established in last years NDAA. Cybersecurity must be a top priority for every company and for government. It is a domain that works best when companies, researchers, and government work hand-in-hand. Unfortunately, cybersecurity efforts operate in silos across the private sector and within government. We need coordination. Its for this reason I cosponsored legislation to establish a centralized cybersecurity coordinator the National Cyber Director in the White House.

A gap I see is the cybersecurity of what I call small organizations small businesses, nonprofits and local governments that are too small to ever employ a cybersecurity professional and may never have the budget to pay for security services. While 50-page technical and legalistic government documents are critical for cybersecurity teams within large organizations, they are too dense for small business owners, executive directors of nonprofits, and city managers of small municipalities. Im currently drafting legislation to address this issue that should be ready to introduce shortly.

I was also pleased the House adopted an amendment I cosponsored that is based on the CHIPS for America Act, which will restore American leadership in semiconductor manufacturing. In the House, I represent much of Silicon Valley, a region that gets its name from the material used to make semiconductors. While the technology sector has evolved to include much more than semiconductor manufacturing, it remains the foundation of one of the most vibrant parts of our economy. Our militarys dependence on semiconductor manufacturing is why its a national security priority, and Im hopeful that the CHIPS for America Act will be enacted into law as soon as possible.

RL: In my own research, I have uncovered that California state government itself has set up purchasing agreements with Chinese-government owned firms like Lenovo, Lexmark, and others. As you well know, the Chinese government asserts its right to collect any data on any Chinese-made device anywhere for any reason. China has been building a database on Americans since 2015. Having Chinese owned equipment in state government is a risk particularly around elections. In any event, it appears that these contracts have been set up by procurement officers who are not aware of the security risks.I attribute this to the lack of communication between the federal government and the states themselves. How could Congress engage constructively with states to help them improve their privacy and security practices in this regard?

You raise a number of highly important points. When it comes to evolving technologies, thinking about privacy and security is critical at every step of policymaking and at every level of government. Laws and regulations need to require privacy and security. Vendor selection should always consider privacy and cybersecurity, especially when issues intersect with national security. And governmental oversight needs to review privacy and security issues.

The federal government must share threat and vulnerability information more reliably. We cant expect every procurement manager in every municipal government to be aware of the national security concerns related to routers, modems, printers, and myriad other internet-connected devices and electronics. National security is the domain of the federal government. In addition to protecting individual Americans, the federal governments responsibility includes protecting our governmental (federal, state, and local) and our economic interests.

RL: Thank you, Congresswoman Eshoo.

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Exclusive: Eshoo On AI, Cybersecurity And Kicking America Off The China Drug Habit - Forbes