Senate Commerce Advances Endless Frontier Bill, OKs Khan's FTC Bid

The Senate Commerce Committee advanced Lina Khan’s FTC nomination to the Senate floor, with four Republicans opposed (see 2105070062). The committee also approved the Endless Frontier Act (S-1260) 24-4 during Wednesday’s markup.

Sens. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Mike Lee of Utah and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming opposed advancing Khan’s nomination. “I thought she had some good ideas. I had a very good discussion with her,” Sullivan told us. “I just thought the experience level was very limited.”

“We just have differences of opinion on some issues, and [I] decided to oppose the nomination,” Blackburn said of the Columbia Law School scholar and former FTC and House Judiciary Committee aide. “We do need to have a path forward on antitrust, but I’ve got a variety of issues that I just want to be certain we deal with” for Big Tech. Lummis and Lee declined comment. Khan “has an impressive background,” said Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo. “She’s one of the better nominees you could expect from this administration.”

Khan is focused on one of the most pressing issues: reining in Big Tech, said ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss. He has reservations about an overly broad regulatory approach that could have a negative impact on the economy and undermine free market principles.

The committee passed the Endless Frontier Act. Lee, Lummis and Sens. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Ron Johnson, R-Wis., voted no. The committee considered more than 230 amendments and incorporated about 100, said Cantwell, who filed a substitute amendment with Wicker and sponsors Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind.

Wicker said some amendments helped improve the underlying bill. He blamed a rushed process and asked for more time to incorporate member and stakeholder feedback. He said he hopes the majority’s determination to push the bill through committee wasn’t “in service of using a partisan reconciliation bill” to appropriate funding for these initiatives. The challenge for the legislation is that China, the competition, “isn’t waiting,” said Cantwell. Young called the EFA strong, pro-innovation, anti-China legislation that will help the U.S. lead.

The committee agreed 15-13 to an amendment offered by Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., which would appropriate $50 billion for domestic semiconductor manufacturing incentives amid a chip shortage. Amazon Web Services, Apple, AT&T, Cisco, Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Microsoft and Verizon supported such a measure Tuesday (see 2105110065).

The issue would be better addressed with more than 48 hours' notice, said Wicker, hoping for an agreement on the issue before the legislation hits the floor. Young said he initially supported the amendment in conversations with Peters. Young apologized during the markup for reversing course, saying he wasn’t aware of the full scope of amendments, though he’s “sympathetic” to the chip shortages. He voiced opposition to Davis Bacon wage restrictions included in the amendment. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., signed on as a co-sponsor to the Peters amendment, citing auto industry needs in his state.

There will be a major debate about adding $50 billion for chip fabrication in the U.S., said Cantwell, arguing the committee should be fighting for jurisdiction on the issue. She explained Peters essentially took language from legislation before the Senate Armed Services Committee, which would direct the Commerce secretary to spend the $50 billion on chip fabrication. Cantwell said she supports Peters’ concept. Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., raised concerns the language would unfairly favor the auto industry when the defense industry should also be considered. The committee needs to offer more input on the chips topic before sending the bill to the floor, said Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., saying Senate leadership and a handful of senators shouldn’t determine the language alone.

The committee agreed 23-5 on an amendment from Sen. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., who negotiated with Wicker, Blackburn and other Republicans. It would restructure funding allocations for the National Science Foundation and Department of Energy’s National Labs. He entered into the record a letter from him and 17 members about the importance of strengthening investment in DOE’s National Labs.

Young said he's “highly unsupportive” of the “poison pill” amendment. He criticized any efforts to divert funding for national security purposes and re-route it for “home-state interests.” Young said the Lujan amendment would “gut” the tech directorate and claimed that through the amendment process, the committee whittled a $100 billion investment in a National Science Foundation tech directorate down to about $17 billion. Young noted that the National Labs receive nearly $12.7 billion annually, about half of DOE’s budget. Lujan described the agreement as an attempt to use expertise from all relevant agencies.

The substitute amendment from Cantwell and Wicker included measures from various members. Wicker said the substitute incorporates strong measures to ensure there isn’t duplication at agencies like DOE. It creates an interagency working group led by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to identify areas of duplication and adjudicate conflicts between federal R&D agencies, he noted. Another issue debated Wednesday was spectrum policy and dispute resolution between the FCC and NTIA (see 2105120065).