Apple and Google will send witnesses to a Senate Antitrust Subcommittee hearing on mobile app competition April 21 at 2:30 p.m. EDT, Chair Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and ranking member Mike Lee, R-Utah, announced Sunday.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., introduced legislation Monday that would ban “all mergers and acquisitions by companies with market capitalization exceeding $100 billion.” The Trust-Busting for the Twenty-First Century Act would allow the FTC to designate “dominant digital firms” in prohibiting such companies from buying potential competitors. It would alter the Sherman and Clayton acts to “make clear that direct evidence of anticompetitive conduct is sufficient to support an antitrust claim.”
House Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J., Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle, D-Pa., and other lawmakers said Thursday they “will closely follow the impact” of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Facebook v. Duguid. The court sided with Facebook in a ruling last week that favored a narrow definition of what constitutes an automatic telephone dialing system (see 2104010063). The decision, which effectively removes “text messages from the Telephone Consumer Protection Act,” may “allow scammers to send out a barrage of texts or calls without fear of reprisal or consequences,” the lawmakers said. “The last thing Americans need right now is an onslaught of texts or calls from scammers trying to swindle them out of their hard-earned money.” The others who signed onto the statement were House Communications ranking member Bob Latta, R-Ohio; Senate Communications Subcommittee ranking member John Thune, R-S.D.; and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass. Those lawmakers led work on what eventually became the Pallone-Thune Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence (Traced) Act (see 1912310028). Markey previously vowed to file legislation aimed at addressing the Facebook ruling.
President Joe Biden said Wednesday that “debate is welcome” and “compromise is inevitable” on how to pay for his $2.3 trillion infrastructure spending proposal, which includes $100 billion for broadband (see 2103310064). Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said Monday he would support increasing the corporate tax rate to 25% from the current 21% level but opposes a larger hike (see 2104050037). “I am willing to listen” to calls to seek a smaller increase than the proposed 28% level (see 2104010062), “but we have got to pay for this,” Biden said. “There are many other ways we can do this, but I am willing to negotiate that.” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told reporters she also believes "there is room for compromise" on the tax increase proposal. The Treasury Department cited the proposed corporate tax rate increase Wednesday, among others. Biden said good infrastructure includes “having reliable high-speed internet in every home.” Ask “folks in rural America, where more than 35% of people lack a reliable high-speed internet” connection, “whether investing in internet access will lead to better jobs, markets for farmers, better opportunities for their kids,” he said. The administration “won’t be open to doing nothing.” University of Florida professor Mark Jamison criticized Biden’s broadband proposal in a Tuesday opinion piece for The Hill. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Wednesday that Republicans would be willing to back a “much more modest” infrastructure plan if it doesn’t seek to increase the corporate tax rate to pay for it. The rate was cut in 2017 from 35% to 21%.
Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough “advised that a revised budget resolution may contain budget reconciliation instructions,” opening up the possibility of Democrats using that process again in FY 2021 to pass an infrastructure spending package or another measure, said the office of Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Monday. That "allows Democrats additional tools to improve the lives of Americans if Republican obstruction continues," the office said. Democrats began floating the possibility last month of using reconciliation on an infrastructure bill (see 2103160001). New America's Open Technology Institute and the Johns Hopkins University Center for Civil Society Studies proposed using "the windfall proceeds of current and anticipated spectrum auctions" to pay for a "Digital Futures Foundation" aimed at investing "in the significant advancements in public-purpose applications and services needed to close the various digital equity gaps for the benefit of all the American people." Some lawmakers are reexamining the possibility of using spectrum auction proceeds to pay for broadband funding in an infrastructure package (see 2104010062). Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said Tuesday he backs an increase in the corporate tax rate to pay for infrastructure.
The federal government needs to provide answers on why it didn’t detect the SolarWinds cyberattack, despite significant investment, Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Gary Peters, D-Mich., and ranking member Rob Portman, R-Ohio, wrote the Department of Homeland Security and OMB Tuesday (see 2103190014). “Despite significant investments in cyber defenses, the federal government did not initially detect this cyberattack,” they wrote. U.S. cyber strategy will “require careful consideration of the appropriate role of the federal government, companies, and citizens in cyber defense, especially when it comes to nation-state actors with near unlimited resources and time.” The agencies didn’t comment.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., ranking member Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and 13 other senators urged President Joe Biden Tuesday to seek at least $3 billion in his FY 2022 budget proposal for the Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund and the Multilateral Telecommunications Security Fund. Each program would get $1.5 billion, the senators said. Congress enacted the two programs, which aim to encourage adoption of open radio access network technology, in the FY 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (see 2101030002). "As wireless networks adapt to the growing demands for 5G connectivity," ORAN "architecture will allow telecommunications providers to migrate from the current hardware-centric approach into a software-centric model that relies heavily on cloud-based services," the senators wrote Biden. "This architecture will break down the current end-to-end proprietary stack of hardware; lower barriers to entry and prompt innovation; diversify the supply chain and decrease dependence on foreign suppliers; and spur" ORAN "deployments throughout the United States, particularly in rural America."
The Senate Intelligence Committee scheduled a 10 a.m. EDT hearing April 14 on global security threats, Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., announced Tuesday. National Intelligence Director Avril Haines, CIA Director William Burns, FBI Director Christopher Wray, NSA Director Paul Nakasone and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Scott Berrier will testify at the virtual hearing.
Facebook should abandon plans to launch Instagram for children unless it can meet the “highest standards of user protection,” Democrats wrote the company Monday. The letter from Sens. Ed Markey, Mass., and Richard Blumenthal, Conn., and Reps. Kathy Castor, Fla., and Lori Trahan, Mass., suggests Facebook not sell or share user data with third parties for commercial purposes. Such a platform should be free of targeted ads and influencer marketing, they said. "The National PTA found that 81 percent of parents reported their children started using social media between the ages of 8 and 13," a company spokesperson said. "If we can encourage kids to use an experience that is age-appropriate and managed by parents, we think that's far better than kids using apps that weren't designed for them. This is in addition to our ongoing work to keep underage users off Instagram."
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said Monday he opposes President Joe Biden’s proposal to raise the corporate tax rate to 28% to pay for new infrastructure spending (see 2104010062) but would support a smaller increase. Biden’s proposal includes $100 billion for broadband as part of a larger $2.3 trillion package (see 2103310064). “If I don’t vote” to get on board with the Biden proposal, “it’s not going anywhere,” Manchin said on WV MetroNews radio. He cited the 50-50 Senate split and the possibility that Democrats will have to move a bill using the budget reconciliation process. “This whole thing has got to change,” he said. “There are six or seven other Democrats that feel strongly about” not raising the rate to 28%, from the 21% rate enacted in 2017, but would back raising it to 25%.