FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly has several top Republicans' backing him to remain for another term, a factor officials told us this month makes him strongly favored for renomination for five more years. One stumbling block appears to be the timeline for President Donald Trump to re-up him amid a souring confirmations atmosphere generally. O'Rielly's term expired June 30 and he can remain until this Congress ends at the beginning of 2021. Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., is among Capitol Hill Republicans backing O'Rielly for another full term. “He's been a terrific commissioner," Thune told us. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who O'Rielly worked for before joining the FCC, also supports a new term. O'Rielly has “been outstanding” at the FCC, Cornyn said. He deserves "another term if he wants it.” O'Rielly said earlier this year he's interested in further time on the commission (see 1902130043). The White House didn't comment Friday. Important to O'Rielly's chances is continued support from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., lobbyists told us. O'Rielly was McConnell's “pick” for the GOP FCC seat in 2013 and “a senior staffer is very close” with O'Rielly, which makes him strongly favored to be Senate Republicans' continued recommended candidate for the role, said a telecom lobbyist who monitors the Hill GOP. McConnell's office didn't comment.
House Science Committee Chair Eddie Bernice Johnson hopes for a return to bipartisanship including on technology, and for more tech stakeholder responsibility in preventing the spread of false or unfair information. "We’re in competition with the rest of the world," not each other, she told C-SPAN. Legislation on tech has been "bipartisan," the Texas Democrat told The Communicators, online Friday. On election concerns and deepfakes, she said, "I hope we’ll see much of that [partisanship] begin to come to an end." The U.S. should "keep pace and hopefully sometimes will lead" against China on artificial intelligence, she said in an appearance to have been televised over weekend. America isn't devoting as much time and money in AI research as China is, she said. Education is needed, including for what she described as blue-collar professions. It's "not too soon" to train people about autonomous vehicles, Johnson said. "Autonomous vehicle travel is probably right here on the horizon." On the spread of misinformation on tech platforms, "we’ve got to be a little more aggressive in making sure there’s responsibility there," and industry is starting to show it's working on this, the congresswoman said. The likes of Facebook and Twitter should act if the president uses them for falsehoods, she recommended. "We ought to have a freedom of responsibility" and not just of speech, she said, in seeking more responsibility. "Many of these platforms are very aware that much of these materials are … unfair." The White House, Facebook, Twitter and the Internet Association didn't comment. Johnson isn't sure "how much privacy we can depend on." Everyone wants to keep things private, yet the majority use the "technologies that remove privacy," she said: "We cannot run away from" this challenge of "protecting the public." She'll "never give up," she said when asked whether privacy legislation could be adopted before next year's elections.
Top Democratic 2020 presidential hopefuls compared and contrasted their positions with a proposal from Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts to break up big tech companies (see 1904170046), during Tuesday night's debate. The plan also factored into the Democrats' first debate, in June (see 1906270010). Warren defended her “break up big tech plan,” saying she's not “willing to give up and let a handful of monopolists dominate our economy and our democracy.” Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee ranking member Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, ex-Rep. Beto O'Rourke of Texas and others agreed government action is needed to address growing influence of major tech firms but criticized Warren for going too far. “We will be unafraid to break up big businesses if we have to do that, but I don’t think it is the role of a president or a candidate for the presidency to specifically call out which companies will be broken up,” O'Rourke said. Sen. Kamala Harris of California blasted Facebook and Twitter, saying Twitter “should be held accountable and shut down” President Donald Trump's account. “It is a matter of safety and corporate accountability,” she said.
Six days after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled partly for the FCC (see 1910010018), President Donald Trump tweeted that "we just WON the big court case on Net Neutrality Rules! Will lead to many big things, including 5G. Congratulations to the FCC and its Chairman, Ajit Pai." Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel responded: "This is wrong. The court told the FCC it couldn't stop states from making their own #NetNeutrality rules. It also sent a bunch of issues back to the FCC." Many want Congress to step in (see 1910010044).
President Donald Trump continued telecom and tech federal advisory committees through Sept. 30, 2021, Friday night via an executive order. They are the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee, National Infrastructure Advisory Council, National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee and President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Trump limited Federal Advisory Committee Act-authorized committees to 350 in a June EO and directed all departments and agencies eliminate superfluous agencies by Monday. Committees formed via the FCC and other independent regulatory agencies are unaffected (see 1906140067). CSMAC meets Tuesday, the first time since July 2018 (see 1909100033).
The Senate voted 82-15 Thursday to pass a continuing resolution to extend federal government funding through Nov. 21 (HR-4378). The House passed the measure last week (see 1909190079). The bid to avert a shutdown at the end of this month now heads to President Donald Trump. The White House said he plans to sign it.
Trump administration “overreliance on unilateral tariff increases to address a wide range of policy problems is upsetting the historic balance between Congressional and Executive powers,” said the Association of Global Automakers, CTA and about 20 other groups in a letter Wednesday to the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committee leadership. Their new Tariff Reform Coalition seeks "clearer guidelines and greater Congressional oversight with respect to Presidential use of tariff authority.” The constitution gives Congress “the power to regulate foreign trade and to specify the parameters of its delegated authority,” they said. The White House didn't comment.
Former Vice President Joe Biden took heat from journalists and social media for his 250-word answer to a question about segregation during Thursday’s Democratic debate that included this advice for how low-income parents can build a better home for their school-age kids: “Make sure you have the record player on at night.” Though record players “still have cachet among the hipster set, they faded from most American households decades ago," wrote Marisa Fernandez on Axios.com, typifying other reactions. “It's one of those moments that can long outlive an election.” Debate-watchers will argue whether Biden’s record-player remark did him political harm as evidence of his difficulty connecting with youthful voters. But there's no denying the rebirth in component turntables and vinyl LPs, though the hardware numbers are expected to experience modest declines for 2019. CTA forecasts the industry will ship 957,000 turntables in the U.S. this year worth about $138 million in revenue, which would be down 4 percent in units, 3 percent in dollars, from 2018, emailed spokesperson Danielle Cassagnol Friday. RIAA doesn’t provide shipment forecasts, but says 16.7 million vinyl LPs worth $419.2 million were sold in the U.S. in 2018, up 7.2 percent from a year earlier in units, 7.9 percent in dollars. That compared with a 40.7 percent unit decline and 33.9 percent revenue decline in CDs. Physical format sales paled in comparison with streamed-music revenue, which climbed 30 percent in 2018 to $7.4 billion, said RIAA.
Telecom and tech issues weren’t discussed in Thursday night’s Democratic presidential debate, but a few candidates targeted China for stealing U.S. intellectual property. China steals “our products, including our intellectual property,” said Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif. “They dump substandard products into our economy. They need to be held accountable.” The problem with China isn’t the trade deficit, but that it’s stealing IP and violating World Trade Organization rules, said ex-Vice President Joe Biden. Entrepreneur Andrew Yang said an executive friend visited China recently and “saw pirated U.S. intellectual property on worker workstations to the tune of thousands of dollars per head.” The friend asked how American workers can compete with that, Yang said, citing lost American revenue.
USTelecom urged 2020 presidential hopefuls Thursday to “commit to timely action” including on prioritizing broadband in “any national infrastructure plan” and “support federal legislation that puts an end to the constant regulatory back and forth about net neutrality.” The industry group released its proposal hours before the Democrats' presidential primary debate in Houston. Five of the remaining candidates propose broadband funding, though experts doubt such plans will have an appreciable effect in the general election (see 1909040061). Seventeen of the 21 Democratic hopefuls back restoring in some form the FCC's 2015 net neutrality rules. They should eschew support for restoring the 2015 rules and instead “champion and enact modern, enforceable national legislation to once and for all put consumers in control of their online experience,” USTelecom said. “Broadband companies have committed to honoring net neutrality. It’s time the most powerful social media, advertising, retail and search companies are required by law to do the same.” The group urged candidates to support policies aimed at ensuring U.S. leadership on 5G, anti-robocall and pro-FTC privacy bills and public-private partnerships to stay "one step ahead of cyberattacks.”