State Antitrust Enforcement Venue Act of 2021

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1396, I call up the bill (H.R. 3843) to promote antitrust enforcement and protect competition through adjusting premerger filing fees, and increasing antitrust enforcement resources, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on H.R. 3843.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3843 is bicameral, bipartisan legislation that consists of three distinct titles, each of which would make modest, but important improvements to modernize our antitrust system and to help protect competition.

Title I of the bill updates the filing fees that merging parties pay to the Federal antitrust enforcers that review their transactions. These fees have not been updated in two decades, which has left these agencies in desperate need of more resources to complete their increasingly heavy workload.

This bill raises the fees that parties pay for large transactions and lowers the fee that parties pay for small- and medium-sized transactions, which ensures that larger deals pay their fair share.

Critically, this legislation raises revenue to support necessary antitrust enforcement while also saving taxpayers $1.4 billion over the next 5 years.

Title II of the bill requires merging parties to notify the antitrust agencies if they are subsidized by countries or entities that are strategic or economic threats to the United States.

This notification requirement gives the agencies immediate access to the information they need to assess the full competitive consequences of subsidized transactions and enables them to better protect U.S. economic interests when they review proposed mergers.

Title III of this legislation ensures that States do not have to waste precious time and taxpayer dollars when they litigate antitrust suits in Federal courts. It does this by exempting State enforcement of the Federal antitrust laws from the often time-consuming and costly multidistrict litigation process. Federal antitrust enforcement agencies are already exempt from this process, and the bill simply puts State antitrust enforcement on equal footing with the Federal Government.

Each element of this legislation enjoys bicameral, bipartisan support. Titles I and II have already passed the House as part of the America COMPETES Act, and title III passed the Senate by unanimous consent.

Together, they would help ensure that our antitrust agencies have the resources they need to protect competition, would provide important disclosures about foreign economic adversaries, and would strengthen State enforcement of our antitrust laws.

I thank Mr. Neguse for sponsoring this important package of bipartisan legislation. I also thank Mr. Cicilline and Mr. Buck, the chair and ranking member of the Antitrust Subcommittee, for their leadership on these bills and on competition issues generally.

I urge all Members to support this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren).

Madam Speaker, I must confess I am a little puzzled at some of the remarks of Mr. Johnson. He says the FTC sics the FBI on parents or whatever. The FTC has no jurisdiction over the FBI and has nothing to do with them. The FTC is part of--never mind.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to see that Mr. McClintock's argument is against all antitrust laws. Consumers make choices, so what do you need antitrust laws for is essentially what he is saying.

Companies buy other companies not just for good reasons. They buy other companies to reduce the competition, and thereby enable them to charge higher monopolistic prices. That is why we have antitrust laws.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Jones), a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I agree with Mr. Issa. We should never have passed the Sherman Act to deal with those newfangled railroads.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Buck).

Mr. Speaker, we do know how the money is going to be spent. It is going to be spent on antitrust enforcement.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stanton), a member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. Speaker, when I listen to Mr. Gohmert and Mr. Jordan, I am really amazed that every single Republican Senator voted for this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time each side has remaining.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline).

Madam Speaker, I yield the gentleman from Rhode Island an additional 30 seconds.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I find it amazing that the gentleman from Ohio would argue we shouldn't give appropriations to the Department of Justice. Congress votes appropriations for every department, and if you think the Department of Justice is not being run properly, well, there is a Presidential election coming up. That is the purpose of elections.

At the present time, the American people 2 years ago elected Joe Biden President and Kamala Harris Vice President, and the President appointed the Secretary of Justice and the chairman of the FTC, both of whom I think are doing an excellent job. But it is a matter of debate which can be decided in the next Presidential election.

To argue that we should starve agencies of the United States Government so that they cannot do the job for which Congress passed statutes mandating them to do the job is absurd.

All that the increase in fees does is update, because the last increase of fees was I don't know how many years ago, and there has been inflation. We need the enforcement against the large Big Tech companies because, as Mr. Jordan already earlier acknowledged, they represent a threat. I think he thinks they represent a different threat from the one I think they represent, but everybody agrees they represent a threat and that their power must be properly supervised by proper enforcement of the antitrust laws.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Neguse), who is a member of the committee.

Madam Speaker, this bicameral and bipartisan legislation is supported by a broad coalition of labor, consumer, and public interest groups.

As the Biden-Harris administration noted in its Statement of Administration Policy on this bill, H.R. 3843 would advance its ``critical mission'' to ``combat the excessive concentration of industry, the abuses of market power, and the harmful effects of monopoly and monopsony.''

Every single United States Senator--every Democrat, every Republican--agrees with this. It is only in this House that there are some people who, for unfathomable reasons, disagree.

Madam Speaker, this bill is squarely in the tradition of the Sherman Act, the Clayton Act, and the Celler-Kefauver Act, and it should be passed.

Madam Speaker, I urge all Members to support this important legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. JACKSON LEE, Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3843, the ``Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act of 2021,'' a bill to ensure fair treatment of small- and medium-sized businesses that are engaged in a merger.

This bill enhances fairness by incentivizing mergers between small and medium-sized enterprises while simultaneously disincentivizing monopolization from larger corporations.

Small and medium-sized enterprises, also known as SMEs, are integral to the U.S. economy. According to the Office of the United States Trade Representative, over the past decade, SMEs have created approximately two-thirds of new private sector jobs, greatly expanding the job market and providing new financial opportunities for hardworking families and individuals.

However, current merger filing fees have impeded businesses that are looking to merge because steep fees may be unaffordable for these SMEs.

Meanwhile, large corporations benefit from disproportionately smaller merging fees that enable them to dominate marketplaces by absorbing smaller companies.'

This bill intends to modify and expand the schedule by establishing graduated merger filing fees and requiring that such fees are adjusted each year based on the Consumer Price Index.

To ensure a fair market for the public, the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act of 2021 adjusts the fees made during the merger process based on the aggregate total amount of the merger, considering the adjusted price at the beginning of the fiscal year.

The Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act of 2021 intends to directly solve this issue by amending the aggregate total brackets utilized to determine the filing fee of the merger, where larger aggregate totals incur greater fees.

This legislation would amend the merger fees by decreasing them from $45,000 to $30,000 for the first bracket. The criteria to qualify for this bracket are also adjusted. The bracket qualification has been increased to include aggregate total amounts of up to $161,500,000 from the previous value of $100,000,000.

Similar adjustments are made to the next two brackets, decreasing the meger fee for companies in the second bracket from $125,000 to $100,000 and decreasing the fee of the third, and formerly highest, bracket from $280,000 to $250,000.

Finally, the bill will add a fourth, fifth, and sixth bracket for the largest companies which have aggregate total amounts that exceed $1,000,000,000, $2,000,000,000, and $5,000,000,000 respectively. In this way, larger mergers are less incentivized as they must pay a larger fee than before.

According to Texas Economic Development, the state of Texas is home to 3 million small businesses. Texas is home to diverse and numerous small businesses committed to technological discovery and economic stimulation, ranging from scientific development to agriculture and forestry.

Allowing SMEs to thrive without the extra pressures of merger fees is integral to safeguarding the economic freedoms these businesses need in order to grow and compete against large corporations who seek to dominate and monopolize the marketplace.

Overall, these changes accomplish two goals in promoting a fair marketplace for small- and medium-sized companies.

First, the adjusted merger fee has been decreased for smaller firms, and the qualifying aggregate total has been increased, which encourages mergers among medium-sized companies. By decreasing the fees required for mergers, medium-sized businesses will have more financial resources to reallocate towards developing their workforce, acquiring needed materials, and reinvesting.

Second, this bill hopes to discourage mergers between larger businesses by establishing larger brackets such that businesses whose aggregate total accounting for more than $1,000,000,000, $2,000,000,000, and $5,000,000,000 will not be grouped together. These businesses will be required to pay a larger fee, ideally discouraging monopoly formations.

Additionally, this bill seeks to provide oversight of foreign transactions that may potentially influence the U.S. market. Merging companies must disclose any subsidies received from foreign economic competitors.

The Merger Filing Fee Act of 2021 promotes mergers between medium- sized businesses by adjusting the fee for merging based on the 2022 fiscal year, while also disincentivizing larger-sized businesses from forming monopolies by creating higher brackets with greater fees.

A fair marketplace can be fostered through the implementation of this bill, encouraging small and medium-sized businesses to look for growth opportunities and mitigate extra pressures added by foreign economic imbalances.

Madam{ Speaker, I urge my fellow Congressmembers to support this bill dedicated to ensuring a fair marketplace for ambitious and innovative American companies by eliminating cost hurdles and establishing fairness in relation to large corporations.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding.

H.R. 3843 is a modest yet critical first step to modernizing the antitrust laws. It generates revenue; it makes foreign adversarial interests in transactions more apparent; and it allows more streamlined antitrust enforcement by State attorneys general.

On the first issue, I think there is general agreement that the fees that are involved in mergers haven't been raised in decades. This simply allows smaller mergers to pay less and larger mergers to pay more.

There is no question about it--this issue came up at the Committee on Rules--this bill does not fund a single additional dollar to any agency. This is a revenue generator. There is no appropriation. The appropriations process will require that this be treated like any other revenue the Federal Government generates, in that the Appropriations Committee, in regular order, will decide how to spend the money.

People should also not be concerned because, under the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022, the DOJ Antitrust Division's use of appropriated funds is limited to ``expenses necessary for the enforcement of antitrust and kindred laws.'' There is already a limitation.

It doesn't provide any additional funding. It simply generates revenues and shifts burdens to the largest transactions so that the taxpayers don't have to be responsible for their review.

In recent decades, the rising tide of economic concentration has given rise to monopolies that exercise outsized influence over our democracy and our political institutions. At the same time, the budgets for antitrust enforcement agencies have not kept pace with the demands placed on them.

As Brian Deese, the director of the National Economic Council, explained: ``It is unacceptable for these agencies' resources to lag so far behind the growth of the economy they are charged with protecting.'' That is why the Biden-Harris administration issued a Statement of Administration Policy in support of this bill.

We can have the fight about whether additional resources are necessary during the appropriations process. This bill simply raises the fees, gives smaller businesses a break, and doesn't appropriate a single dollar.

Title III of the bill strengthens antitrust enforcement by preventing the State antitrust actions from being dragged into private litigation in another venue.

This legislation enjoys wide support among the States. Last year, the National Association of Attorneys General and every single State attorney general in the United States wrote a letter urging Congress to pass the bill's amendment to the multidistrict litigation statute ``as soon as possible so that our citizens can benefit from more efficient, effective, and timely adjudication of antitrust actions.''

Mr. Speaker, I, too, urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this legislation, and I applaud them for their sponsorship. I thank Mr. Buck, who has been a tremendous leader on this package of bills. There should be no question. Senator Lee, Senator Cotton, and Senator Grassley have said that this package represents ``a strong bipartisan consensus.''

These bills improve antitrust enforcement without appropriating any more funds. You don't have to believe me. Those are your Republican colleagues who made the same point.

In addition to that, this multijurisdiction litigation robs State attorneys general who bring a Federal antitrust action in Federal court from the ability to litigate in that court, which often, by dragging them to another State, is a great benefit to the big corporations, to the monopolists, but it is harmful to their own constituents, their consumers, their businesses, which is why they support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a number of items to reflect the broad support enjoyed by H.R. 3843.

First, is a strong Statement of Administration Policy, which makes clear this legislation is necessary to support the President's mission to enforce the antitrust laws, to combat the excessive concentration of industry, the abuse of market power, and the harmful effects of monopoly and monopsony.

Second, is a letter of support for the State Antitrust Enforcement Venue Act of 2021, signed by every attorney general in the United States, including California's Rob Bonta, who makes clear that: ``States should accordingly be on equal footing with Federal enforcers in deciding where, when, and how to prosecute cases'' and not subject to a system where their enforcement actions ``may be subject to transfer to a multidistrict litigation at the request of the defendant,'' where the cases are typically ``postponed and may be joined with other lawsuits brought by private plaintiffs.''

Third, is a letter from a broad coalition of 36 labor, consumer, and public interest groups, including Public Citizen, Public Knowledge, Open Markets Institute, AFL-CIO, Teamsters, and SEIU, which states: ``This bipartisan, bicameral legislation represents a critical first step for Congress to reverse the course of lax antitrust enforcement that has proved to be destructive to small businesses, workers, communities, and innovation.''

Fourth, is a statement from Chris Jones of the National Grocers Association, who says that: ``This bipartisan bill does not change the antitrust laws; it takes the simple step of helping enforcers have a better shot of deterring abusive marketplace conduct that American consumers cannot afford right now.''

Finally, a statement from Diana Moss, president of the American Antitrust Institute, states that: ``Additional resources are needed to enable the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission to review and investigate billion-dollar deals.''

For all of those reasons, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this commonsense package that will help to enhance competition, give us the ability to improve our economy, and benefit consumers, workers, innovators, and small businesses.

Statement of Administration Policy,

H.R. 3843--Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act of 2022--Rep. Neguse, D-

CO, and 39 cosponsors

The Administration supports House passage of H.R. 3843, the

Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act of 2022.

Open, fair, and competitive markets are essential to the

welfare of American families, workers, farmers, and

businesses. As the President stated in his Executive Order on

Promoting Competition in the American Economy, ``it is the

policy of my Administration to enforce the antitrust laws to

combat the excessive concentration of industry, the abuses of

market power, and the harmful effects of monopoly and

monopsony.'' The Act would support this critical mission in

three important respects.

First, to vigorously enforce the antitrust laws, the

Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission

(FTC) need the resources to do their jobs. Yet even as the

number, size, and complexity of mergers has grown, the amount

oft he filing fees that parties must pay in advance of

premerger review by the DOJ and the FTC has not kept pace.

Moreover, both agencies' annual appropriations support many

fewer employees today than they did in 1979, even though the

economy has grown significantly since then, and even though

the agencies' core missions involve bringing complex cases

against some of the best-resourced companies in the world.

The Act would update the regime for merger filing fees to

make it fairer and better targeted. The Act would reduce the

size of the fees required for smaller transactions, while

raising them for the largest mergers that often require the

most extensive reviews.

Second, the Act would respect the important role of State

Attorneys General in Federal antitrust enforcement by

harmonizing the process for transferring antitrust cases

filed by State Attorneys General with those filed by Federal

agencies. This would increase the efficiency and efficacy of

antitrust enforcement.

Third and finally, the Act would require disclosure of

merger subsidies by foreign adversaries. Requiring disclosure

of foreign subsidies, such as by Chinese and Russian

entities, in the premerger notification process would assist

the DOJ and the FTC in preventing anticompetitive

transactions through which adversaries could gain influence

over important parts of the economy.

The Administration encourages the House to pass the

bipartisan Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act of 2022 and

looks forward to working with Congress on this important

legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman again for yielding.

I just want to make clear, once again, that this bill does not appropriate money to the FTC, and I think the chairman of the Judiciary Committee and I will continue to advocate for more funding. But this is not an appropriations bill. The ultimate decision about whether money will be appropriated to the FTC or the Department of Justice will be made like every other appropriation: by the Members of the Congress of the United States after a robust debate, and the Congress will decide.

This generates revenue and makes certain that big mergers are paid for by gigantic near monopolies of big corporations and not by our constituents, and it lowers the price for merger reviews on smaller transactions. So that is all it does.

Secondly, it is important to remember that, as Mr. Buck said, this isn't a Republican or Democrat bill.

I want to read to you a statement from Senator Klobuchar and Senator Durbin:

``The Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act is the product of years of bipartisan work in both the House and

Senate to improve the enforcement of our antitrust laws and protect competition and consumers. This package of bills will update merger filing fees and help ensure that the Federal antitrust agencies can be properly funded, that information on foreign subsidies is made available to Federal enforcers, and that State antitrust enforcement can proceed more efficiently and without needless delays.''

I have a statement from Senator Lee, Senator Cotton, and Senator Grassley--Republicans in the Senate--who say: ``This package represents a strong, bipartisan consensus approach to strengthening enforcement of the Federal antitrust laws, against both Big Tech and other bad actors.''

So this is widely supported by Republicans and Democrats in both Chambers, and I think it is an example of where we can work together collectively to respond to a serious problem: the consolidation of economic power. Antitrust is important because we know competition is the single greatest driver of innovation. Without competition you don't have innovation, and innovation produces more choices, better quality, and lower prices. It benefits consumers, small businesses, and workers.

I say again, this is about supporting competition with some very commonsense proposals that have strong bipartisan support in both Chambers.

We can finally let Big Tech know that the time in which they can do whatever they want and continue to behave as monopolists is coming to an end.

Overwhelmingly, the American people support reining in Big Tech--over 70 percent in poll after poll.

But one other thing I wanted to just mention is that with concentrated economic power often comes concentrated political power. That is one of the dangers of monopoly. They have too much political power. Let's prove them wrong and pass this bill.

Madam President, I rise in support today of Mary Boyle, the nominee to serve as Commissioner at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Mary will bring to this role more than a decade of experience on the Consumer Product Safety Commission, where she previously served as general counsel and currently serves as the Executive Director. She is deeply knowledgeable about consumer product safety and the functioning of the CPSC. I have every confidence that she will be ready to lead on day one.

But it is not just her professional background that makes her perfect for this role. As a mom who raised three kids, she knows firsthand how important it is for parents to be able to trust the products they use every day. She understands the stakes and the devastating consequences of unsafe products.

Just yesterday, the Commerce Committee took an important step forward toward protecting kids and infants by passing the STURDY Act, which will prevent harmful and ultimately heartbreaking furniture tip-overs. Senators Casey and Blumenthal and I have been working on this for quite a while. It resulted in the largest furniture recall ever in the history of America with IKEA. But we need standards in place across the board. I know that we can count on Mary to be another critical partner in preventing unsafe products from hurting our kids.

Mary is clear-eyed about the responsibility of the CPSC. In her words, it provides a safety net for the public, and in order to carry out that crucial task, it needs a full roster of Commissioners. Currently, four of the five slots are filled. To truly address pressing product safety issues, we have to fill that fifth seat. We can't afford to play politics here. This is about everything from the hazards posed by crib bumper pads to the use of toxic chemicals in everyday consumer products.

I got involved in this way, way back before I was a Senator, when we had a young child swallow a charm that he got with a pair of tennis shoes. It was a giveaway. He didn't die because he choked on that charm; he died over a period of days because the lead in that charm, which was from a foreign country, got into his system, and he died in just a few days. That is how I got involved in the lead standards on foreign toys, that is how I started working with the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and that is when I saw the difference it can make.

We passed a bipartisan bill named after Jim Baker's granddaughter-- the Virginia Graeme Baker pool safety bill--after a young kid named Abigail Taylor in Minnesota was in a kiddy swimming pool and her intestines were ripped out just sitting in the pool because there were so many faulty drains in this country.

I went and visited her in the hospital, and she said: I don't want this to happen to any other kid.

She lived for a year, and during that time, we worked together.

Then Ted Stevens and I passed a much stronger pool safety bill. And I know that the last time I heard testimony from the Consumer Product Safety Commission, over a period of a decade, after we lost a number of kids every year, not one kid had died because of a simple change to how the pool drains worked. That is what the Consumer Product Safety Commission can do at its best--make sure it doesn't happen to any other kid again.

The American people are counting on us to get this right, and with Mary, we have the opportunity to do just that.

As Mary said in her testimony, consumers need to be able to go about their daily lives without worrying that products they interact with every day--washing machines, cell phones, batteries, toys, and treadmills, to name just a few--do not injure, maim, or kill them. Throughout her impressive career, Mary Boyle has shown that she is wholeheartedly dedicated to that mission.

I am voting in support of her, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, reserving the right to object, my friend and colleague Senator Lee is well aware that I am supportive of this bill. We worked together. I am a lead Democrat on this bill to get it through the committee.

I simply believe that this bill must go hand in hand with another bill that would look at this issue in a much bigger way; that, yes, this is about allowing State attorneys general to do their jobs and enforce the law, and that is why he and I have joined forces on this bill. But it is also about putting some rules of the road in place on a Federal basis.

We are very close to having a vote on Senator Grassley's and my bill, with a broad range of authors and support, which would be the only and first Federal competition response to tech monopolies since the advent of the internet.

I have been watching this movie for way too long. We have hearings, we throw popcorn at CEOs, we get sound bites on TV, but we don't do anything on a Federal basis. We had the Facebook whistleblower come forward, tell of the horror, the American people are with us, and we dither and do nothing. This is actually the first time that we have a coalition across the aisle of people who are ready to move forward on a Federal response.

So my view of this is that, as we work to get our enforcers more funds--that is a part of it; Senator Grassley and I have a merger fee bill that is moving as part of the competition bill, which is currently in conference committee--and as we work on Senator Lee's very worthy legislation to focus on allowing the State attorneys general to keep their cases in their own jurisdictions, we simply cannot pretend that we don't have some role in this.

If Members don't know about it, maybe they have talked to one of the 2,700 lobbyists whom the tech companies have hired or maybe they have been subject to the $70 million effort on the Federal level. And this is not Senator Lee that I am talking about; he is a true maverick and is willing to take on special interests. But what I believe is going on in this building is that there are a lot of people trying to wait this one out and hope we don't have a vote on this bill.

I appreciate Senator Schumer working with me and leadership on the Democratic and Republican sides of the Judiciary Committee to make sure that we get this vote.

So Senator Lee will have a vote on this bill. I would certainly not concede at this moment giving tech something they want in this bill when we can't even have a vote on the Federal legislation, but we will have a vote on Senator Lee's bill. I just believe they have to go hand in hand.

I think he is well aware of Senators doing all kinds of things procedurally to be able to get votes, but I think it is really important that we don't have a State-only approach when it comes to what is going on with tech.

To again remind my colleagues and those watching this, what our bill--this big, bipartisan, important bill--does, it doesn't tear apart the company. It doesn't even take on the fact that they are all monopolies--and they are monopolies. Google has a 90-percent market share. Apple and Google basically, when it comes to app stores, are duopolies in dominating the market.

While Europe is set to vote on their own digital market bill on Monday and move this ahead--I was just speaking with them--while Australia has taken on the issue of the news organizations, while Great Britain is moving ahead, we sit back. It is time to at least take on one issue.

As the Justice Department looks at what is a monopoly, is it a monopoly when you have 90 percent market share? The very least we can do is put some rules of the road in place.

What Senator Grassley's and my bill does--and we have taken several comments from Members and made changes to that bill--what the bill simply does is it says: Hey, monopolies or gatekeeper companies, if you own your own companies--which they are increasingly doing--you can't use your monopoly status to self-preference your own products in front of other products.

No. 2, you can't copy nonpublic data that you have because of the virtue of the fact that you are the gatekeeper and then rip it off and make your own products. That is exactly what Amazon did, as the Wall Street Journal reported, with a four-employee luggage organizer firm when they gave them the data. The next thing you know, it shows up on Amazon Basics.

The third thing you can't do is make companies, small businesses, buy a bunch of stuff just to put yourself at the top of the platform.

The American people are with us on this, poll after poll, including a poll that Google accidentally--accidentally--put out there before they were able to pull it back that showed 68 percent of people want to use the antitrust laws--68 percent of people in their own polling--to be able to rein in this problem.

This is a uniquely American approach, but it must be done hand in hand with State enforcement.

So, all I am asking my friend and colleague to do here--and we wouldn't be here if we could have reached an agreement on this--is, I will assure him that we will have a vote on his bill; but we must also have a vote and finally move ahead on what is only a slice of what we could be doing.

We are not doing some of the things I would want to do, which is look back at some of these mergers, which is actually take that email that Mark Zuckerberg wrote that said I'd rather ``buy than compete'' and look at what they bought in their zest to be able to avoid competition. Right now, that is going on with the Justice Department and the FTC. But we are simply trying to set some rules of the road, and it is more than overdue after an 8-month investigation in the House of Representatives--an 8-month investigation.

What Federal bills have we passed that would put any checks and balances on these companies? They just keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And I am so pleased that some of the State attorneys general are taking this on.

I am eager to get Senator Lee's bill and my bill up for a vote, but it will come close to when the vote on the actual Federal rules takes place. For these reasons, I object.

Again, I look forward to working with Senator Lee to pass this bill, and I also look forward to passing a bill on the Federal basis and not just deciding that this should be in the province of 50 different States, and I thoroughly plan to work with him to pass this bill, and I hope it will be soon.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly urge my colleagues to vote ``no.'' While parts of this bill have some support, the package before us today does nothing but empower the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission.

Why would we support more funding for unaccountable officials in the Biden administration, particularly these two agencies, the Department of Justice, in light of what we have seen from them over the past several months?

Time and time again, they have weaponized that agency to go after the American people.

Now, some are asserting that oh, no, this wouldn't give more money to the bureaucracy. But this is the kind of Washington budget gimmick that the swamp uses to grow government all the time.

In the majority's own committee report on the bill they acknowledge ``the updated fee structure would provide the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission with additional resources to review mergers and enforce the antitrust laws; more money for Merrick Garland and the DOJ to harass the American people.

Even proponents of the bill are talking about how this would get resources to the agencies while saying it doesn't include an appropriation. This logic is laughable.

We know where this money is going. In fact, the chairman of the committee said in his opening remarks that the DOJ and FTC are ``in desperate need of more resources.'' We know where this money is going, $280 million, $140 million to each agency, every single year.

Congress has already appropriated money to hire 87,000 new IRS agents, and now we are going to give hundreds of millions of dollars to the DOJ and the FTC. Such a deal for the taxpayer. Where does it stop?

If you want to do something about Big Tech, this bill is not the vehicle. A bill that empowers these two agencies to, I think, collude with Big Tech to come after conservatives is not the way to go. I hope we can vote this down.

Mr. Speaker, as I said before, I urge a ``no'' vote, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I will respond to the gentlewoman from California. I appreciate the fact that she is a ``no'' on this bill, but I think her logic is all wrong. This bill would actually give $140 million to the DOJ so they can continue to do what they are already doing, work with Big Tech to censor certain information from getting to we the people.

Why do I say that? Because we know it happened. Just a month ago, Mark Zuckerberg said the FBI came and told him not to allow the story about Hunter Biden's laptop to be on their platform. They gave him the old wink-wink, oh, we think this is Russian disinformation, which we know it wasn't. Now, we are going to give that agency $140 million more to go collude with Big Tech to keep we the people from getting valuable information before the most important election that we have, the election of the Commander in Chief of our country?

That is why this thing is so scary and why we should be against it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Johnson).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock), a distinguished member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry), my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Buck), a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to respond to comments made by my friend from Colorado. He used the term ``overcooked theory.'' Let me tell you what is not theory.

The Department of Justice's raid on a former President's home. Not theory.

The Department of Justice taking the phone of a sitting Member of this body. Not theory.

Fourteen whistleblowers coming to our office talking about the political nature of the Justice Department. Not theory.

Those are facts. That is scary stuff.

Now this bill, if passed, will give that agency $140 million each year for the next 5 years.

That is what we want to do? For that reason alone, we should be against this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Issa), my good friend, a member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Bentz), a distinguished member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. Speaker, I would just point out that I find it interesting. First, we had Mr. Cicilline, the chair of the subcommittee say that DOJ and FTC don't get the money. It has to be appropriated next year. But then the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Nadler, said we know how the money is going to be spent. It is going to be spent on antitrust enforcement. It can't be both.

So it can't be both. We know what is going to happen. This money is going to wind up in DOJ and FTC, and we know their track record in how they have been treating the American citizen.

But I find it interesting that the Democrats can't even get their argument straight which just reinforces why this bill should not pass, because in the end it is more money for the Department of Justice--the same Department of Justice that has done their egregious actions over the last several months.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) who is a former judge, a great member of the Judiciary Committee, and a friend of mine.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, concentrated political power: that is what the Department of Justice is doing right now. They are weaponizing the Department of Justice against the American people.

The most concentrated political power--awesome power--you can have is the Federal Government. And I would argue the agency within the Federal Government that is the most dangerous is the Department of Justice, and we are going to give them $140 million more over the next 5 years.

It is amazing. Again, Mr. Cicilline can say what he wants, Madam Speaker, but that is not consistent with what the chairman said. The chairman said that this is going to give more resources to antitrust enforcement.

Here is what the Democrats' own committee report says: ``The upgraded fee structure would provide the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission with additional resources.''

So either Mr. Cicilline is completely wrong, or the majority report is wrong, or the chairman is wrong. Somebody is wrong.

We know what is going to happen. This is the same old game we hear all the time: Oh, it is not really appropriated, but we are charging more money.

It will result in more money coming to the concentrated political power at the Justice Department, but it is really not going to go there.

Give me break. We know where it is going. They have even said it in their own darn committee report.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I just point out that I didn't say that Congress shouldn't appropriate dollars to Federal agencies. What I said is that we shouldn't give more money to the Department of Justice in light of what we have seen them do and in light of what 14 whistleblowers have told us over the last several months what they are up to. That is a completely different point.

I am all for looking for ways to cut certain agencies and reduce Government and the power that they have, but I didn't say that. I just said that we shouldn't be giving them more money, for goodness' sake, in light of what they have been doing. I think that is a pretty reasonable position, and, frankly, I think it is the position the vast majority of the country would have when they look at the actions they have seen from their Department of Justice and the tax money that supports that agency.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I would just add I have talked a lot about my concerns with the DOJ in light of what we have seen from that agency, and I think that is the main reason why this bill is so wrong and it should not be supported.

But the FTC is also engaged in all kinds of things that I just think are interesting.

One commissioner said that she supports prioritizing FTC investigations related to ``systemic racism and rulemaking for racist practices.'' A senior FTC adviser who called Kay James, the former head of the Heritage Foundation, she called her a bigot and criticized viewpoint diversity. She is the one who developed FTC policy on AI and discrimination.

Republican Commissioner Wilson described Democrat goals as ``rooted in unified world view that draws heavily on Marxism.''

This is an agency controlled by people who have a radical belief system, radical opinions, and radical political views. Again, not only is the Department of Justice getting $140 million more a year, so is the FTC which is run by people with those kinds of positions.

So, again, I think we don't want to be giving more money to agencies with this kind of track record, particularly, I think, now when the American people are about to speak on whom they want to control their Congress. That is why I think we should vote ``no'' on this legislation, hopefully it goes down, and do the oversight that needs to be done of these two agencies so we can point out the facts and the truth and get that to the American people.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record an article titled, ``Lina Khan's Unfair and Deceptive Approach to Antitrust.''

[From U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Sept. 20, 2022]

Lina Khan's Unfair and Deceptive Approach to Antitrust

(By Sean Heather)

In a recent speech at Fordham University, Federal Trade

Commissioner (FTC) Chair Lina Khan outlined an aggressive new

approach to the agency's competition policy. Under her

leadership, she explained, the FTC will interpret ``unfair

methods of competition'' broadly, block mergers that could

reflect an ``incipient'' trend toward monopoly, reject

efficiency defenses, and contend that ``conglomerates'' harm

consumers, irrespective of economic evidence. In Khan's view,

her agenda is ``fundamentally conservative'' because it shows

``respect for the rule of law'' as reflected in congressional

intent.

Khan's speech hearkens back to George Orwell's Ministry of

Truth, where words apparently lose all meaning. Khan's agenda

rejects the rule of law in favor of a progressive policy

agenda that grants the government total discretion to

challenge any merger for any reason whatsoever, ignoring

basic economics, history, and decades of precedent from the

Supreme Court.

Most troubling is the fact that Khan's agenda would allow

the agency to challenge any private conduct that conflicts

with progressive notions of fairness. Section 5 of the FTC

Act directs the agency to combat ``unfair methods of

competition.'' Historically, the agency has tied this

authority to what's in the consumers' economic interest,

which hews closely to the other main antitrust statutes,

namely the Sherman Act and Clayton Act. As a result, the FTC

provided Section 5 with context, guardrails, and

predictability, which are all integral to the rule of law.

Under the FTC's new leadership, however, anything goes. The

FTC's new strategic plan condemns ``unwarranted health,

safety, and privacy risks'' and seeks ``equity for

historically underserved communities.'' These issues, while

important, lie far outside the FTC's statutory authority or

competence. Yet under Chair Khan's reading of Section 5, the

FTC can do whatever it pleases. Without guardrails, for

example, the FTC could condemn as ``unfair'' a merger that

would result in job losses even if that merger would lower

costs and lead to lower prices for consumers. Congress never

envisioned the FTC to serve as the morality police over the

market.

Cherry-picking History

In fact, the last time the FTC embarked on a path of

overreach of this scope was the 1970s. As a result, the

Washington Post editorial board labeled the agency the

``National Nanny'' and Congress nearly eliminated the agency

altogether. Similarly, Chair Khan's approach conveniently

sidesteps this period of tremendous overreach and willfully

ignores the succeeding decades of precedent and economic

learning. According to her, the amendments to Section 7 of

the Clayton Act show that Congress was concerned with any

trend toward mergers and that, therefore, the agencies and

courts erred in accounting for the possibility that a merger

might increase efficiency. Khan points to Supreme Court cases

from the 1960s to support her position and, in fairness, she

is correct that in an earlier time in our history mergers

were reflexively viewed more skeptically--but that was prior

to now decades of reliance on sound economic analysis that

accompanies merger review.

Chair Khan, however, seeks to divorce economic analysis

from antitrust law. In those intervening decades, economists

came to understand that relatively few mergers actually

threaten competition, whereas most mergers, particularly

vertical mergers, have pro-competitive benefits such as

improved capital flows and greater efficiency. Across

political administrations, the antitrust agencies tailored

their enforcement activities to target those mergers that

posed a genuine risk to competition. Consistent with economic

learning and experience, the Supreme Court interpreted the

antitrust laws more permissively to allow the private sector

more freedom to operate.

By returning to the worldview prevalent in the 1960s, Chair

Khan's FTC would seriously damage the economy's dynamism. By

blocking mergers that increase concentration only slightly,

the FTC would prevent startups from obtaining the capital and

technical expertise that they need to grow and thrive. By

replacing Section 5's guardrails with amorphous standards

subject to the shifting winds of politics, the FTC would

eliminate the certainty and predictability that businesses

need to plan and invest. And by barring use of the efficiency

defense, the FTC would force companies to incur more costs to

produce the same products--costs that would be passed along

to consumers.

Mr. Speaker, I support title II of this bill, and, actually, I would vote for it if it was set up as a separate bill as it once was.

I would not support title III.

The real issue is title I and the $1.4 billion that it would provide to the Department of Justice and the FTC.

The assertion is that it would not or is not supported by the record. Let me explain, however, what has not happened that should have in order to make this $1.5 billion supportable. And what hasn't happened is we have not had Chairwoman Lina Khan appear before us in our Committee on the Judiciary. It seems odd that we wouldn't find out how this money is going to be spent before we allocate it to the purposes reflected in the Record.

Let me just read from a recent speech at Fordham University:

``Chair Lina Khan outlined an aggressive new approach to the agency's competition policy. Under her leadership, she explained, the FTC will interpret `unfair methods of competition' broadly, block mergers that could reflect an `incipient' trend toward monopoly, reject efficiency defenses, and contend that `conglomerates' harm consumers, irrespective of economic evidence. In Khan's view, her agenda is `fundamentally conservative' because it shows respect for the rule of law as reflected in congressional intent.''

To quote the U.S. Chamber of Commerce: ``Khan's speech hearkens back to George Orwell's `Ministry of Truth,' where words apparently lose all meaning. Khan's agenda rejects the rule of law in favor of a progressive policy agenda that grants the government total discretion to challenge any merger for any reason whatsoever, ignoring

basic economics, history, and decades of precedent from the Supreme Court. Most troubling is the fact that Khan's agenda would allow the agency to challenge any private conduct that conflicts with progressive notions of fairness. Section 5 of the FTC Act directs the agency to combat `unfair methods of competition.' Historically, the agency has tied this authority to what is in the consumers' economic interest, which hews closely to the other main antitrust statutes, namely the Sherman and Clayton Act. As a result, the FTC provided Section 5 with context, guardrails, and predictability, which are all integral to the rule of law.

Why didn't we have Chairwoman Khan appear before us and explain why she wants to vary so dramatically from what has been the law for the past 30 years.

``Under the FTC's new leadership, however, anything goes. The FTC's new strategic plan condemns `unwarranted health, safety, and privacy risks,' and seeks `equity for historically underserved communities.' These issues, while important, lie far outside the FTC's statutory authority or competence. Yet under Chair Khan's reading of Section 5, the FTC can do whatever it pleases. Without guardrails, for example, the FTC could condemn as `unfair' a merger that would result in job losses even if that merger would lower costs and lead to lower prices for consumers.''

Mr. Speaker, this is a bill whose time is not right. We don't know how the money is going to be spent, and I urge a ``no'' vote.