As new leaders take their places in the 119th Congress, they face urgent telecommunications matters and many of the same tech issues left unresolved in the last legislative session.
The new House Committee on Energy and Commerce chairman, Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY), told the Washington Examiner he “look[s] forward to working with [his] colleagues on policies to close the digital divide, keep Americans safe online, and promote United States leadership against our foreign adversaries.”
“Energy and Commerce Republicans will advance policies to unleash innovation in next-generation technologies and create more opportunities for the American people,” added Guthrie, who has represented the west-central Kentucky 2nd Congressional District since 2009.
What shape those goals take specifically remains unclear.
Guthrie, along with new Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-TX), will have some obvious matters to attend to, such as reauthorizing the Federal Communications Commission’s authority to auction more government-held spectrum off to private use.
Wireless carriers, which would like to buy more licensed spectrum to power their networks, and broadband companies, which want more unlicensed spectrum for Wi-Fi use, are in favor of re-upping the auctions. But the FCC’s hands have been tied since its authority to hold spectrum auctions expired in March 2023, the first time such a lapse has occurred since 1994. The FCC needs Congress to act before new spectrum license auctions can be set up. A source familiar with the matter said that might happen as a part of the anticipated Senate reconciliation bill, used to enact President Donald Trump’s tax cut extension in a procedure needing only a bare majority of 51 votes in the 100-member chamber, rather than the usual 60-vote threshold to clear a filibuster.
Another pressing reauthorization matter is that of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The NTIA is a bureau of the Department of Commerce and is responsible for advising the president on telecommunications policy. It hasn’t been updated by Congress in more than 30 years. The House passed NTIA reforms aimed at spectrum policy and cybersecurity last year, but the measure did not pass in the Senate.
Efforts to reform NTIA may get a boost from widespread criticisms of the agency’s rollout of the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program, another likely priority for the new chairmen.
Congress and then-President Joe Biden enacted the BEAD program in 2021 as a part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, allocating $42.45 billion for the NTIA to distribute to states for expanding broadband access and closing the “digital divide.” But the program became mired in bureaucracy, and its critics point out it has yet to connect one person or business to high-speed internet service. Cruz is vocal about his frustrations with how the NTIA has overseen BEAD. Both he and Guthrie are likely to pursue reforms to the subsidy program.
Other tech policy priorities may spill over from past congressional sessions.
Congress has repeatedly tried and failed to pass comprehensive privacy legislation. Past efforts have hit an impasse over Republicans seeking federal preemption of state privacy laws, while Democrats have sought a private right of action for violations. Privacy legislation will likely be a point of coordination for Cruz and Guthrie.
Guthrie told Punchbowl News that he “would prefer to do a comprehensive privacy bill, but first and foremost is, if we can’t do that, make sure we do have a bill for children’s protection that we can get through the House and the Senate.”
In the previous legislative session, the Senate passed the Kids Online Safety Act. But the bill stalled in the House over objections of First Amendment violations from some legislators, starting with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA). The bill, known as KOSA, or a similar measure, is expected to be reintroduced in the new Congress.
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Artificial intelligence regulation will also likely be considered. At the end of the last congressional session, the House released the 250-page Bipartisan Task Force on Artificial Intelligence report. The report declares that it “is intended to serve as a blueprint for future actions Congress can take to address advances in AI technologies.” Yet the report is open-ended on many specifics that Congress will be forced to address if and when it makes AI regulations.
Last December, Cruz, in his waning weeks as Senate Commerce Committee ranking member, sent a letter to then-Attorney General Merrick Garland requesting the Department of Justice investigate foreign interference in AI policy. The senator’s office said in a press release that “the letter highlights how copying the Europeans’ regulatory approach would hurt Texas’s emerging tech industry and undermine U.S. innovation as American firms work to outpace China on AI technologies.”