Committee says China is a threat to Nebraska, though details remain confidential

Nebraska’s agriculture, manufacturing and critical infrastructure are vulnerable to threats from China, according to the Committee on Pacific Conflict, a group created by the Legislature last year.

But details about those threats are not available to the public, because the committee is exempt from the state’s public records and meeting laws.

The job of the Committee on Pacific conflict is to watch over threats to Nebraska’s critical infrastructure in case of war in the Pacific.

The law creating the committee ordered studies of Nebraska’s procurement supply chains and investments to identify vulnerabilities and possible solutions. So far, about $350,000 has been spent on those studies, according to the Legislature’s Fiscal Office.

But the studies themselves are not available to the public. Disclosing information from them is a crime, and the Committee on Pacific Conflict is exempt from Nebraska’s public meetings and open records laws.

Sen. Eliot Bostar, who introduced the legislation to create the committee on behalf of Gov. Jim Pillen, said the secrecy is justified.

“It’s not about keeping information from the people of Nebraska. It’s about ensuring information doesn’t get to those who would be interested in seeing harm come to Nebraska,” Bostar said.

Bostar was asked why Nebraskans shouldn't know about threats, for example from Chinese-manufactured components in its critical infrastructure, since presumably China knows.

"Because they don't necessarily know -- not fully," he replied. "We procure things through intermediate vendors. We get things through additional contracts. Contractors who put systems together will incorporate other elements. It isn't like our adversaries have a perfect picture of where all of our equipment of concern is located, and now certainly they know where some of it is, but they don't know where all of it is, and I do not think it's in anyone's interest to have that picture clearly paint it for them," he said.

The original version of the legislation said the open meetings act would apply. And it said nothing about exempting the committee from public records laws. But in the public hearing on the bill, representatives of electric and gas utilities warned that making possible vulnerabilities public could provide what one called a “road map to bad actors.”

An amendment was then drafted to exempt the committee from open meetings requirements and add criminal penalties for disclosing information. A later Bostar amendment also exempted the committee from public records requirements.

Those changes were not discussed when the full Legislature debated the bill before passing it 46-0. Sen. Danielle Conrad, a leading advocate of government transparency who supported the bill, described the process.

“I don't believe that we had a significant debate in regards to the nuances of how this new state committee will be conducting its work,” she said.

So far, Bostar said, the committee has met three times, and those studies on state procurement supply chains and investments have been completed, and have been largely reassuring. That’s according to Bostar and Lt. Gov. Joe Kelly, who chairs the Pacific Conflict Committee.

Although the reports themselves are confidential, the legislation calls for the governor to publish a state threat assessment including a “summary of nonconfidential findings” of the committee.

But those “findings” can seem fairly generic. For example, this year’s report says, “China’s growing presence in the Indo-Pacific Region, particularly through its 'Belt and Road' initiative and strategic investments, poses significant global challenges. While these activities primarily target Asia-Pacific and emerging markets, the ripple effects on U.S. states like Nebraska are substantial. Nebraska’s economy, heavily reliant on agriculture, manufacturing, intellectual property and increasingly digital infrastructure is vulnerable to cascading impacts from China’s Indo-Pacic activities in trade, investment and cybersecurity.”

Bostar says the public summary reflects a balancing act.

“I think that there is a tradition of the government disclosing homeland security- and national security-related information in very vague ways," he said. "I think that's out of caution. I think surely there are those that would say that it's an overabundance of caution, and there are those that would say that it's an appropriate amount of caution, but I do think it can result in the production of information that feels generic."

But despite the limited information available to the public, Bostar said the effort is worth it.

“Real line items, equipment vendors, procurement items, are being identified. The true work is being done. I absolutely attest to that,” he said.

He acknowledges accepting that, and the secrecy, requires trust.

“I trust other people that say that we're going to create more problems than we're going to be able to solve if we have all of this open to the public. And I trust them, and I understand that to some extent, I'm asking for trust as well,” he said.

Going forward, Conrad said, that secrecy raises a question about the best way to address safety concerns.

“Is that best effectuated through a blanket exclusion of this committee's work in from our tools of open government, our open meetings laws and our open records laws? Or in fact, should we utilize the common sense tools that are part of those laws that allow us to balance the citizens’ right to know but also to protect sensitive information?” she asked.

Current open meetings and records laws include exemptions for discussions involving security, as well as critical energy and electrical infrastructure. Conrad says allowing those kind of exemptions could be preferable to blanket secrecy.

“It would seem to me that that would probably be a better path to follow,” she said.

Kelly said a decision on making that change could come relatively quickly.

“For instance, if I'm one of the four legislators, do I hit a point where I wish I could tell my colleagues one thing that they should know as we discuss farm implements that have data that they're collecting that might be susceptible to theft by foreign adversaries, and so should they know about it? Well, you kind of hope so we'll decide pretty darn quick whether or not this thing needs to be that restrictive,” he said.

That decision will come in an environment that’s changed a lot, said attorney Max Kautsch. Kautsch represents Media of Nebraska, including Nebraska Public Media, on open meetings and public records questions.

He said there was a big push for transparency laws like Nebraska’s in the 1970s.

“Once Watergate happened, there really became this push nationwide that there was going to have to be a standardized way, not just within the federal government, to be able to access records and meetings," he said. "The pendulum had swung very far towards public interest and away from government secrecy, the government interests and big money interests and those sort of things. The power was resting in the people at that time."

Now, Kautsch said, things are different.

“I think that it's fair to say that here in 2025, the pendulum has swung the other way now, and so the predominant interest is less about public access and transparency and more about clandestine government solutions,” he said.

Where that pendulum swings in Nebraska may be reflected in future decisions about the Committee on Pacific Conflict and the reports it considers.