Happy Tuesday! It feels like at least 24 political news cycles have passed since our last newsletter. Send your news tips to cristiano.lima@washpost.com. Today:
Biden’s tech and communications officials will face hostile House Republicans
President Biden’s tech and communications authorities are likely to face sharp criticism from House Republicans as leaders of the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission head to Congress on Tuesday to defend their requests for increased budgets.
Two key House subcommittees will have their first opportunity to question agency leaders since launching several high-profile Democratic-led initiatives, including restoring “net neutrality,” proposing new child privacy protections and investigating artificial intelligence partnerships.
Here’s a summary of what to look out for:
Both agencies have faced resistance from House Republicans to proposed budget increases, but the FTC’s resistance has been fiercer.
The agency has requested $535 million for next fiscal year, an increase of $105 million from last year, but House Republican leaders have balked at the proposal, and last month budget writers on another committee introduced a bill that would cut the agency’s budget by $37 million and that also includes a series of provisions aimed at limiting the agency’s regulatory powers.
In prepared testimony, FTC Chair Lina Khan said the cuts would be “devastating” for the agency and that “layoffs and reductions in staffing will likely be necessary.”
The FCC’s position is less shaky: The agency has requested $448 million for next year’s budget, $58 million more than last year, and while House Republicans have been reluctant to fully grant its requests, budget writers tentatively approved a $26 million increase last month.
FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel said the full request “will allow the Commission to meet its statutory duties and uphold the law’s core values while keeping up with ever-changing and evolving technology.”
The FCC hearing will be the agency’s first time testifying before the House Energy and Commerce Committee since it reinstated Obama-era “net neutrality” rules in April, a hotly contested partisan issue, and could provide a chance for Republicans to press how far the FCC plans to go in expanding surveillance under its new mandate.
In his testimony, Rosenworcel said the measure would “ensure that the nation’s communications experts have essential oversight over the most important communications network of our time.”
The subcommittee chairing the meeting is expected to criticize the decision, saying in prepared remarks that the move “will allow agencies to impose burdensome regulations that make it harder for providers to deploy broadband.”
The agency’s anti-discrimination rules are also expected to be a major focus this session, according to a memo prepared by the House committee’s Republican majority.
Congressional negotiations over a federal privacy bill are again in disarray, but a hearing with the FTC on Tuesday will give House Republicans an opportunity to grill the agency on its efforts to create stronger data privacy protections through ongoing rulemaking.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, has long opposed efforts by the agency to address the issue with comprehensive new rules and has urged Congress to instead fill the gaps through legislation.
Sens. McMorris Rodgers’ privacy bill, recently withdrawn from markup at the last minute, notably would have forced the FTC to halt its rulemaking process. The agency also proposes significant overhauls to enforce federal children’s privacy laws.
“We welcome broad-based federal legislation that establishes fundamental consumer protections for all Americans and builds on the FTC’s own numerous enforcement actions,” Khan said in his testimony.
The FTC’s New Republican Faction
The FTC hearing will mark the first time that two new Republican commissioners, Melissa Holyoak and Andrew Ferguson, have testified before Congress since joining the agency this year.
The FTC’s two previous Republican commissioners had feuded with Khan over policy priorities and the agency’s operations, with one of them publicly criticizing her in an op-ed when she resigned.
House Republicans have voiced a number of concerns since then, and Tuesday’s meeting could be an opportunity to find out whether the new commissioners share those sentiments and, more broadly, the extent to which they agree with Khan’s approach to the agency.
U.S. builds global tech supply chain to mitigate China-related risks (New York Times)
Apple removed VPN apps at the request of Russian authorities, app maker says (TechCrunch)
Big telecom companies give impetus to key Biden policies (Politico)
Senate committee holds privacy-focused AI hearing (The Hill)
Microsoft tells Chinese employees to use iPhones at work, stop using Androids (Bloomberg)
Altman, Huffington launch AI health coach (The Hill)
DAIR report details data workers’ exploitation by the tech industry (TechCrunch)
Cyclists aren’t sure whether to fear or love self-driving cars (Trisha Thadani and Gerrit de Vink)
‘We don’t want to leave people behind’: AI helps people with disabilities in surprising new ways (CNN)
Zaman Qureshi, formerly of the Real Facebook Oversight Committee advocacy group, will join Accountable Tech as a campaign associate. He will remain co-chair of the youth-led advocacy group Design It for Us. Peter Chandler, formerly TechNet’s senior vice president of federal policy and government relations, will join the Internet Works technology trade group as its first executive director. The House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold subcommittee hearings with FCC and FTC members at 10 and 10:30 a.m., respectively. The Federalist Society will host a fireside chat with FTC’s Holyoak at noon Wednesday. The Senate Commerce Committee will hold a hearing, “The Need to Protect Americans’ Privacy and AI Accelerators,” at 10 a.m. Thursday. The Federal Internet Caucus Academy will host an event, “Tech Platforms and the First Amendment: The Impact of the Supreme Court’s Ruling,” at noon Friday.
That’s all for today. Thank you for joining us. Please tell others to subscribe to Tech Brief. Contact Cristiano (by email or Social media) and Will (email or Social mediaFor tips, feedback, greetings, etc., please contact us at .
