H.R. 261 · 119th Congress · Public lands and natural resources
Undersea Cable Protection Act of 2025
How the House voted
Yea from the left, nay from the right, each side by party
House · Feb 11, 2026
Roll call ↗218
212
Passed the House.
Passed the House on February 11, 2026.
Latest action: Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
- IntroducedJan 9, 2025
- CommitteeJul 2, 2025
- Passed HouseFeb 11, 2026
- Passed Senate
- Became law
On the record
- Cosponsors
- 7
- all Republicans
- Committees
- Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and TransportationHouse Committee on Natural Resources
- Lobbying
- At least 7
- organizations named it2025 Q1 to 2026 Q3
What it does
Amends the National Marine Sanctuaries Act to bar the Secretary of Commerce from prohibiting, or requiring any permit or other authorization for, the installation, continued presence, operation, maintenance, repair, or recovery of undersea fiber optic cables in a national marine sanctuary when a Federal or State agency has already issued a license, lease, or permit for that activity and it remains in effect.
How each member voted
The House roll call, passed the House, February 11, 2026
Amends the National Marine Sanctuaries Act to bar the Secretary of Commerce from prohibiting, or requiring any permit or other authorization for, the installation, continued presence, operation, maintenance, repair, or recovery of undersea fiber optic cables in a national marine sanctuary when a Federal or State agency has already issued a license, lease, or permit for that activity and it remains in effect. The bar applies notwithstanding any other provision of the Act. The bill preserves existing interagency-cooperation requirements under section 304(d) of the Act for the covered cable activities. It also strikes two paragraphs from the sanctuary special-use-permit provision in section 310(c) and renumbers the remainder.
Each stop is a step the bill’s own record states, with the date it happened. A ring is a step not yet taken. A bill becomes law when the President signs it or Congress overrides a veto.
At least 7 organizations named this measure in a lobbying filing. A floor, not a total: they were counted by the client name on 24 quarterly reports filed by 1 lobbying firm and by 6 organizations lobbying for themselves in 2025 Q1, 2025 Q2, 2025 Q3, 2025 Q4, 2026 Q1, 2026 Q2 and 2026 Q3. An organization that lobbied this measure without naming it is not counted here.
The filings record that lobbying was reported on the measure. The form has no per-bill dollar figure and no field for a position, so nothing here says how much was spent or which side an organization took.
5 of them, in no ranking: Chamber of Commerce of the U.S.A.; Microsoft Corporation; Pc Landing Corp.; Cloudfactors LLC; Meta Platforms, Inc. and Various Subsidiaries. Listed as filed, in the order the filings were read, and 2 others are not shown. These are not the largest, the earliest or the most active: we keep five names per measure, and the filings give no ranking.
From the LD-2 quarterly lobbying filings published at lda.gov by the Senate Office of Public Records. Read for 2025 Q1, 2025 Q2, 2025 Q3, 2025 Q4, 2026 Q1, 2026 Q2 and 2026 Q3. Our copy holds 24 fewer filings for 2025 Q1, 39 fewer filings for 2025 Q2, 42 fewer filings for 2025 Q3, 33 fewer filings for 2025 Q4, 28 fewer filings for 2026 Q1, 48 fewer filings for 2026 Q2 and 218 fewer filings for 2026 Q3 than the Senate's register counts, so those quarters are the filings we could read rather than every one filed. 2026 Q4 is still inside its filing window, so that quarter is only the filings posted so far.
Congress.gov bill status and cosponsor records; the House Clerk and Senate roll calls; lobbying reports filed under the Lobbying Disclosure Act (lda.gov); the plain summary and provisions are read from the bill text, each with its section.