Klobuchar, Grassley Try to Add Merger Filing Fee Proposal to Funding Bill
Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, are trying to get a bill to increase antitrust enforcer funding added to the Senate Appropriations Committee’s funding bill for FY 2021, Klobuchar told us. The Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act would update those fees for the first time since 2001. When Grassley and Klobuchar introduced the bill in June 2019, they said the fee for a “$900 million deal should not be the same as the fee for a $60 billion deal.”
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The top Democrat on the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee, Klobuchar said she had discussions with DOJ Antitrust Division Chief Makan Delrahim to “try to get the funding into the Antitrust Division in the budget,” so Justice can do its job. Lawyers are needed for major efforts like the Google antitrust lawsuit, she said: “You can’t take on major tech companies without the funding to do it.”
“It’s up to whether or not we can get it in,” said Grassley. “I’m not in the middle of that, but we’re trying.” If Republicans retain the Senate majority, Grassley will return to chair the Judiciary Committee (see 2011250031), which has jurisdiction over DOJ. The committee, the Senate Appropriations Committee, the office for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and DOJ didn’t comment Monday.
Klobuchar “would love” for the Antitrust Subcommittee to complete a bipartisan review of U.S. antitrust laws next year: “Next year, if we just do nothing on monopolies in general and you just let it keep going without adjusting our laws, which we have done through history, it’s going to get worse.” Chairman Mike Lee, R-Utah, declined to comment.
It remains unclear who will be top Judiciary Committee Democrat next year (see 2011250031). Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told us he would be comfortable with Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., being both whip and top Judiciary Democrat. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., who also expressed interest in the seat, told us it’s a “caucus matter, and I’m going to leave it in the caucus.” Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, was also noncommittal: “As a policy matter, that’s going to be a subject of discussion.”
Big Tech’s domination of the ad market will get scrutiny in 2021, Commerce Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., told us. She raised the issue before a recent committee hearing (see 2010270036), citing declining ad revenue for newspapers and broadcasters. It’s about making sure there’s a “level playing field” as users move to new “delivery systems,” she told us. She expects legislators to “get back to the table” for privacy negotiations, and Communications Decency Act Section 230 will be on the radar: “Tech policy is getting a lot of attention, so I think it will be the mix of a lot of issues.”