Barton to Seek House Commerce Committee Chair if GOP Wins House

Barton would need a waiver from the House Steering Committee to become chairman due to House GOP rules limiting members to three two-year terms as committee leaders (CD May 27 p2). He’s the ranking member and chaired the committee in 2004, when the GOP last controlled the House. Barton previously did not disclose his plans if the GOP retakes the chamber, and at least three other Republican members of the committee have expressed interest in chairing it, Reps. John Shimkus, R-Ill., Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., and Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich. “Step one, we have to recapture the House,” Barton told us. “If that happens, I would put myself forward to be the chairman of the Energy Committee.” It’s not automatic because the GOP has no seniority preference when choosing chairmen, but his prior service in 2004 would give him some standing, he said.

Congressman Shimkus is working to ensure Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, becomes the next Speaker of the House, said Shimkus Press Secretary Chris Tomaszewski. “The other issues are second to that,” he said. Stearns said he’s focused on electing a GOP House and making Boehner its speaker. Barton has done a good job as ranking member, but if he doesn’t get a waiver from the steering committee, Stearns said his experience chairing a subcommittee combined with his conservatism and small business experience make him an effective chairman. As for Rep. Upton, “Fred is unrivaled with his combination of seniority, experience and demonstrated leadership on Energy and Commerce and it is Fred’s goal to be the next chairman,” said Upton spokesman Sean Bonyun. “But with less than four weeks until the midterm elections, the critical fight right now is to recapture the House, and Fred is aggressively working to elect Republican candidates across the country.”

If chosen, Barton said his top priority would be clarifying that the FCC doesn’t have jurisdiction over broadband, “period, despite their misguided effort to regulate it under Title II.” Barton said he would push for an immediate vote on a bill explicitly stating the FCC doesn’t have jurisdiction and can’t reclassify it. Another priority is reforming the Universal Service Fund, which he sees as a relic from the 1920s made obsolete by technology. It means fighting thousands of small telephone companies receiving much of their revenue from the USF, he said. Barton would allow for a technology option allowing providers to fulfill their legal obligations by setting up wireless instead of installing hardwire. He also would cap the fund.

Other Barton priorities include spectrum allocation. “I think almost 10 years after 9/11 we would have first responder networks up and interoperable,” Barton said, and privacy, where Barton digresses from the GOP’s pro-business slant. “If you have to make a judgment call, err on the side to give more privacy to an individual and not as much economic opportunity to the business to share information without individual consent,” he said. Industry has moved more toward his position in the last three or four years, he said, saying default settings are much more protective of privacy. Behavioral profiling is an issue that concerns him, though he’s not ready to ban it. Companies can profile where an individual shops, buys clothes, and even what kind of coffee they drink, he said. It demands strong notification and transparency requirements telling consumers when they're profiled, he said. “It’s something we need to look at,” Barton said. “The Internet and technology get lots of benefits in an open market but also comes with lots of potential complications and intrusions of privacy,” he added. “It’s a difficult issue to legislate.” The position doesn’t conflict with the Tea Party’s libertarian philosophy, he said. Barton belongs to the GOP’s House Tea Party Caucus. “[W]e are protecting their freedoms and giving them more transparency where they could choose to opt in or have an informed consent opt-out,” he said.

Barton said he was not completely familiar with current regulations and constitutional law when asked about reforming the Communications Decency Act to hold providers such as Craigslist liable for posting ads offering sex from minors. Any kind of advertising or trafficking of minors is already illegal, he said, as is child pornography, which should have a zero-tolerance standard. He would be “very supportive” of making it as difficult as possible to post such adult material on mainstream sites and would consider passing additional legislation if necessary. “You can have adult material on the Internet but it should be fenced off so you really do have to be an adult to access it,” he said.