Newly installed House Energy and Commerce Chairman Brett Guthrie told The Washington Times he wants to pass legislation to protect children online this Congress after a bipartisan effort sputtered out last session.
House GOP leaders declined to advance a bill called the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, that advanced out of the Energy and Commerce Committee last session, arguing it needed further tweaks to protect free speech before it could see a vote.
Mr. Guthrie, a Kentucky Republican who took over as Energy and Commerce chair in the new Congress after the committee’s previous leader retired, said he plans to push KOSA or similar child online safety legislation through the committee again and hopes to see it pass the House.
However, he has not settled on a strategy for advancing the legislation, as he also wants to prioritize action on more comprehensive data privacy legislation that KOSA could fit into.
“The question we have to ask ourselves is are going to do KOSA as a standalone and then do further privacy or try to do it together? That’s a decision that hasn’t been made yet,” Mr Guthrie said.
“My projection — or at least my hope in my leadership — is going to be that we have a minimum a KOSA bill during this Congress,” he said.
KOSA requires social media companies to turn off data-driven algorithms for minors and ensure their accounts default to the strongest safety and privacy settings. It also includes a “duty of care” standard that would require online companies to implement design standards that protect minors from specific harms and permit the Federal Trade Commission to bring enforcement actions against companies that fail to do so.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, blocked bipartisan plans to include KOSA in a year-end government funding package in December, saying he wanted to wait until President Trump was in the White House “to get the right bill into law.”
He said members of his conference have concerns about the bill’s requirements being “overbroad” and that they could lead to “further censorship by the government of valid conservative voices, for example.” Mr. Johnson was “very optimistic” that Republicans could work through those concerns and pass the bill early in 2025.
Mr. Guthrie suggested the timeline may not be that quick, but he didn’t have one to lay out. He acknowledged changes will likely need to be made to KOSA to shore up support among his House GOP colleagues.
“We need to sit down and go through it and see exactly where [the issues are],” Mr. Guthrie said. “We need some more support, so we’re going to have to figure out what that is and what it takes to get there.”
KOSA changes could become a task of House GOP working groups Mr. Guthrie wants to put together to tackle broader data privacy legislation. However, those working groups may not be formed imminently given competing priorities on energy and other policies being put together for a budget reconciliation package that will carry much of Mr. Trump’s agenda.
“Doing both at the same time might be difficult,” Mr. Guthrie said.
The chairman also hopes to work with Democrats on KOSA and the broader privacy bill, but he said Republicans may have differing priorities on the latter.
“We wouldn’t want a private right of action, which may keep us from working it bipartisan,” he said.
• Lindsey McPherson can be reached at lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com.