Hill Leaders Jettison JCPA From NDAA, Add Modified Chinese Semiconductor Ban
Language from the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (S-673) didn’t make it into a compromise version of the FY 2023 National Defense Authorization Act released Tuesday, after a wave of criticism from the bill’s opponents (see 2212050067). The House was expected to vote on the revised NDAA, filed as an amendment to shell bill HR-7776, as soon as Wednesday night. The broadcasting industry, which backs JCPA, faced a potential second legislative hit Wednesday at a House Judiciary Committee markup of the American Music Fairness Act (HR-4130), which NAB opposes (see 2202090053).
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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, succeeded in attaching revised language to the revised NDAA that would restrict the federal government’s use of products with semiconductor manufacturers deemed to be Chinese military contractors. The text specifically bars use of chips from ChiangXin Memory 703 Technologies, Yangtze Memory Technologies and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. The restriction mirrors similar ones mandated in the FY 2019 NDAA covering equipment from Huawei, ZTE and three other Chinese firms (see 1912170059). The House and Senate Armed Services committees said Tuesday negotiators agreed to attach a revised version of the Schumer/Cornyn proposal that would delay the restriction from taking effect until 2028, after major business groups objected to an initial two-year buffer included in the initial amendment Schumer and Cornyn filed in October.
The compromise NDAA also has language requiring DOD to report to lawmakers by the end of March “on appropriate alignment of” spectrum “operations responsibilities and functions." The study would assess the “appropriate role of each existing organization and element of” DOD “with responsibilities or functions relating to electromagnetic spectrum operations and the potential establishment of a new entity dedicated” to those functions. Senate Armed Services said in June its NDAA text (S-4543) would direct “an assessment of the implications of” provisions in the NTIA Organization Act “on DOD's access to the electromagnetic spectrum and resources” (see 2206160077), but the final language released the following month didn’t include it.
Senate Antitrust Subcommittee Chair Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., lamented congressional leaders’ decision not to include her S-673 language in the NDAA. Enough Senate Republicans apparently threatened to place a hold on the NDAA if it included S-673’s text to potentially endanger its ability to clear the chamber’s 60-vote filibuster threshold, lobbyists said. “We remain grateful to our champions, and will support them to get the JCPA over the finish line this Congress,” said News Media Alliance Executive Vice President Danielle Coffey in a statement. “The future of quality journalism and a functional democracy depends on it.” NAB and other backers of the measure didn’t comment Wednesday.
“Continually allowing the big tech companies to dominate policy decisions in Washington is no longer a viable option when it comes to news compensation, consumer and privacy rights, or the online marketplace,” Klobuchar said Wednesday in a statement. “We must get this done.” She specifically criticized Meta Tuesday for threatening to pull all news content from that social media platform if it passed via the defense measure (see 2212060065).
TechFreedom President Berin Szoka urged lawmakers Wednesday to take JCPA “through the normal hearing process in the next Congress,” citing what he views as a bid by the Senate Judiciary Committee during this Congress to end-run around the “standard legislative process.” S-673’s “sponsors rewrote the bill repeatedly to get it through markup” in September (see 2209220077) “and there was never any opportunity to examine whether those amendments were adequate” to address First Amendment concerns, Szoka said. Chamber of Progress CEO Adam Kovacevich hailed the lack of S-673 language in the NDAA as potentially the measure’s “death knell,” suggesting “it likely has no path to passage next Congress” if current House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, becomes chairman in January as is currently expected.
House Judiciary hadn't taken up HR-4130 at our deadline Wednesday afternoon. The American Music Fairness Act, previously filed last year (see 2108120059), would levy a performance royalty on stations playing music on terrestrial radio. Lawmakers reintroduced the bill in September (see 2209220076).
NAB raised concerns about a revised version of HR-4130, which House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., filed as a substitute amendment before the markup session. NAB “remains committed to working to find a mutually beneficial solution to this decades-old policy disagreement, but this AMFA proposal is not the answer,” said President Curtis LeGeyt: “A markup of this legislation as drafted simply ensures that yet another Congress will pass without meaningful progress on this issue.”
SoundExchange CEO Michael Huppe, meanwhile, urged Congress to “act now” on HR-4130. Its passage would mean “artists would finally get paid for their music being played on AM/FM radio in the U.S., and it would remove the excuse for other countries to withhold their royalties from Americans,” Huppe said Tuesday in a Billboard opinion piece. “Corporate broadcasters argue that a ‘mutually beneficial relationship’ exists between AM/FM radio and music creators. Yet their actions belie that claim, as they spend millions to fight this legislation and avoid sharing the billions of dollars they make in advertising from music.”