Congress strips NOAA's veto over cable projects in marine sanctuaries
S. 2873 — Undersea Cable Protection Act of 2025 · Filed by Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) · 1 cosponsor · Introduced Sep 18, 2025 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
This bill amends the National Marine Sanctuaries Act to prevent NOAA from requiring its own separate authorization for undersea fiber optic cables if a federal or state agency has already issued a license, lease, or permit for the same work. It allows NOAA to participate in interagency coordination but strips its independent permitting authority over cables in marine sanctuaries.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is to remove NOAA's independent sanctuary-protection authority and replace dual-agency review with single-agency permitting. This is functionally a deregulatory streamline favoring cable operators, framed as a procedural efficiency measure.
What the text implies
- NOAA retains only 'interagency cooperation' authority under section 304(d), which is advisory/consultative, not binding — the Secretary cannot condition or deny a cable project even if NOAA identifies sanctuary harm.
- The bill applies retroactively to cables already authorized by other agencies, potentially grandfathering in projects that predate this amendment and were never subject to sanctuary-specific environmental review.
- Cumulative impacts from multiple cable installations, repairs, and recoveries in the same sanctuary are no longer subject to NOAA's holistic ecosystem assessment — each project is reviewed only by the original permitting agency.
- State-issued permits (e.g., from a coastal state agency) now override federal sanctuary protections, creating a race-to-the-bottom dynamic where operators seek the least restrictive state permit.
- The bill does not require NOAA to be notified of cable activities in sanctuaries, only to 'cooperate' if invited — NOAA may learn of projects only after they begin.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Ordinary citizens lose environmental protection. The bill removes NOAA's independent authority to impose sanctuary-specific conditions on cable installation, repair, and recovery in protected marine areas. While cable infrastructure itself may be beneficial, stripping a dedicated environmental regulator's veto power over activities in ecologically sensitive zones reduces public safeguards against habitat damage, species disruption, and cumulative impacts.
Who stands to gain
- submarine cable operators and installers
- telecommunications companies deploying undersea fiber infrastructure
- cable repair and recovery service providers
Named in the bill
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Marine Sanctuaries Act (NMSA), Secretary of Commerce, Federal and State agencies, undersea fiber optic cable operators
Where it stands
1 cosponsor: 1 Republicans.
- Sep 18, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Sep 18, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 lobbying clients named this bill on 3 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $925,426 in lobbying spend. A filing names 39 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 41% of bills with at least one filing.
Marsha Blackburn, the sponsor, reported $133,620 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- American Fed of Government Employees AFL-CIO — $840,426 on 2 filings
- Nec Corporation of America — $85,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (1,221 characters) on Jun 8, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Congress strips NOAA's veto over cable projects in marine sanctuaries” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/s2873 Report an error
The week in bills
One email, Sunday: what Congress passed, what it changed, and who paid.
One link arrives to confirm the address. It is used for this email and nothing else, and every issue carries an unsubscribe link.