Biden’s tech and telecommunications enforcers will face a hostile House Republican Party

Two key House subcommittees will be able to question agency leaders for the first time since they launched several high-profile Democratic-led initiatives, including restoring “net neutrality,” proposing new children’s privacy rules and exploring artificial intelligence partnerships.

Here are some tips to look out for:

Both agencies face opposition from House Republicans to their budget increases, but the FTC faces much more of it.

The agency has requested $535 million for next year, which would increase its budget by $105 million over last year. But House Republican leaders have opposed the proposal, and last month, lawmakers on another committee introduced a bill that would cut the funding by $37 million. The bill also included a series of provisions aimed at limiting the agency’s regulatory powers.

FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan in her prepared testimony, she said the cuts would be “devastating” to the agency and “will necessitate both furloughs and likely workforce reductions.”

The FCC is in a less precarious position. The agency has requested a $448 million budget for next year, $58 million more than last year. While House Republicans have been reluctant to fully grant that request, appropriators tentatively approved a $26 million increase last month.

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said the full request “will ensure the Commission can fulfill its statutory mandate and uphold the fundamental values ​​of our laws… while keeping pace with ever-changing and evolving technologies.”

The FCC hearing will be the first time the agency has testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee since the rollback of Obama-era “net neutrality” rules in April, a major partisan flashpoint. The session could give Republicans a chance to pressure the FCC on how far it plans to push its expanded oversight under the new order.

Rosenworcel said in her testimony that with this step, “the nation’s communications expert has primary oversight of the most important communications network of our time.”

Representative. Bob Latta (R-Ohio), whose subcommittee is hosting the session, will be criticizing the decision. In prepared remarks, he criticized the move for “enabling the agency to impose burdensome regulations that make it harder for providers to deploy broadband.”

The agency’s anti-discrimination regulations will also be a major item on the session’s agenda, according to a memo from the Republican majority on the House committee.

Congressional negotiations on federal privacy legislation are once again in disarray. But Tuesday’s hearing at the FTC will give House Republicans a chance to grill the agency on its own attempts to create stronger data privacy protections through ongoing rulemaking.

Representative. Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (R-Wash.), who chairs the full Energy and Commerce Committee, has long opposed the agency’s attempts to solve the problem with sweeping new regulations, instead calling on Congress to fill loopholes in the law.

The McMorris Rodgers Privacy Act, which was recently withdrawn at the last minute from the memo, would have forced the FTC to halt its rulemaking process. The agency also proposed a significant update to the enforcement of federal children’s privacy laws.

“I welcome broad federal legislation designed to establish baseline consumer protections for all Americans and building on the FTC’s extensive enforcement actions,” Khan said in her testimony.

New Republican Party Contingent FTC

The FTC hearing will be the first opportunity for the two new Republican commissioners, Melissa Holyoak AND Andrew Fergusonhas testified before Congress since joining the agency this year.

Both previous Republican FTC commissioners have clashed with Khan over her policy priorities and management of the agency, and one of them publicly criticized the chair in an editorial after she resigned.

House Republicans have since echoed many of their concerns, and Tuesday’s session could shed light on whether the new commissioners share those sentiments and, more broadly, how much they agree with the direction Khan has taken for the agency.

U.S. builds global high-tech supply chains to mitigate China risks (New York Times)

Apple removes VPN apps at the request of Russian authorities, app developers say (TechCrunch)

Big telecom companies defend Biden’s important policies (Politico)

Senate committee to hold privacy-focused AI hearing (The Hill)

Microsoft Orders Employees in China to Use iPhones at Work, Ditch Android (Bloomberg)

Altman, Huffington Launch AI Health Coach (The Hill)

Data scientists detail tech industry exploitation in DAIR report (TechCrunch)

Cyclists can’t decide whether to fear or love self-driving cars (Trisha Thadani and Gerrit De Vynck)

‘We don’t want to leave people behind’: AI is helping people with disabilities in a surprising new way (CNN)

• Zamaan Qureshipreviously a member of the advocacy group Real Facebook Oversight Board, joins Accountable Tech as a campaign associate. He will remain co-chair of the youth-led advocacy group Design It For Us. Peter Chandlerformer senior vice president of federal policy and government relations at TechNet, joins Internet Works trade group as its first-ever executive director.

• The House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee will hold subcommittee hearings with the FCC and FTC commissioners at 10:00 a.m. and 10:30 a.m., respectively.
• The Federalist Society is hosting a chat with the FTC’s Holyoak at noon Wednesday.
• Senate Commerce Committee to hold hearing on “The Need to Protect Americans’ Privacy and the AI ​​Accelerator” on Thursday at 10 a.m.
• At noon Friday, the Congressional Internet Caucus Academy is hosting an event titled “Technology Platforms and the First Amendment: The Impact of Supreme Court Decisions.”

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