Walden Sees Little House Commerce Progress on Privacy, AV Legislation

that was to have been televised this weekend. If the GOP had retained its House majority in the 2018 election, he believes he and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., would have focused on reaching a legislative deal early this Congress. “We talked a lot about it” before the election, Walden said. “We were hoping to get ahead” of the California Consumer Privacy Act taking effect “and look at what worked and didn’t work” with the EU’s general data protection regulation. CCPA enforcement began this month (see 2006300051). That law and GDPR are becoming the U.S.’ de facto privacy standard absent a national law, Walden said: “America should lead in this space” and “the longer we wait, the more other governments … are going to meander around in this space and you’re going to have this patchwork of competing requirements.” The main reason privacy legislation hasn’t moved is because of continuing disagreements about whether to include a private right of action or a trial bar in a final measure, Walden said. The latter is also the main reason AV legislation failed to advance. Walden was more optimistic about House Commerce’s work on communications network security, citing enactment of the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act. HR-4998 provides funding to help U.S. communications providers remove Chinese equipment determined to threaten national security (see 2003040056). He hopes appropriators include money for the law’s enactment in FY 2021 funding measures. The House Appropriations Committee’s FY21 FCC funding bill allocates $1 billion for that purpose (see 2007080064). “The extent to which we can get” suspect “equipment out of” U.S. infrastructure and “not only compete on 5G but leapfrog to whatever we call the next iteration … is where we need to focus,” Walden said.