Two critical nominations for President Joe Biden's tech and telecom agenda will stand for a vote this week that will determine the likelihood of their confirmation.
Gigi Sohn and Alvaro Bedoya, selected by the White House as commissioners to the Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission, respectively, will face their nomination votes in the Senate Commerce Committee on Feb. 2.
If advanced to a full Senate vote, the nominees will be one step away from giving their respective agencies Democratic majorities. Both the FCC and FTC are locked in a 2-2 partisan split. The FCC, in particular, has been down one commissioner for over a year.
"We are now a year into the Biden Administration and the FCC has important work to do on broadband, public safety, and restoring the agency's oversight of our communications networks," Public Knowledge Government Affairs Director Greg Guice said in an email to S&P Global Market Intelligence. Guice added that Sohn's "expertise and experience" would greatly benefit the FCC as it tackles those issues.
From 2001 to 2013, Sohn served as the co-founder and CEO of Public Knowledge, a communications and intellectual property policy advocacy organization.
Sohn faces a difficult path to confirmation. Senators from both sides of the aisle have expressed pushback on confirming the progressive net neutrality advocate who served as an adviser to former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler.
Moderate Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona will be a major determinant in Sohn's path to the commissioner post. Sinema, who has tended to side with GOP colleagues on FCC matters, has criticized Sohn's pro-net neutrality views. Sinema's office did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
Republicans have also questioned Sohn's tweets criticizing FOX News Channel (US). Sohn argued that her opinions as a public interest advocate will not have bearing on her policymaking decisions.
Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the Commerce Committee's chief Republican member, has called out Sohn for her involvement in now-defunct TV streaming service Locast, where Sohn served as a board member. Locast was found by a court to be illegally streaming broadcasts without permission or compensation.
In an effort to offset bias concerns, Sohn late last week wrote a letter to the FCC saying she would recuse herself from any commission items relating to retransmission consent and TV broadcast copyright for the first four years of her tenure, assuming successful confirmation to the vacant seat.
As for Bedoya, he testified last year before the Commerce Committee, touting his past consumer privacy advocacy efforts and his support for oversight of facial recognition technologies. His post-testimony approval vote in the Commerce Committee was met on party lines, and the Senate decided to not take up his confirmation vote. At the start of 2022, his nomination, as well as Sohn's, was re-upped.
Aurelien Portuese, director of antitrust and competition policy at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, told Market Intelligence that Bedoya's confirmation is likely. Portuese, however, has concerns about how Bedoya would change the agency's approach to consumer protection and antitrust enforcement.
"With Alvaro's possible confirmation as FTC Commissioner, the blurred lines between consumer protection and antitrust are likely to marginalize, if not undermine, the rule of reason inherent to antitrust rules at the expense of efficiency considerations raised by companies, and ultimately at the expense of consumer welfare," Portuese wrote in an email.
 |
|||
Government |
|||
| Feb. 1 | The Senate Committee on Appropriations will hold a hearing titled "Expanding Broadband Access: Department of Commerce Broadband Programs in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. |
||
| Feb. 2 | The Senate Commerce Committee will convene an executive session to consider various nominations, including those of Alvaro Bedoya and Gigi Sohn |
||
| Feb. 2 | The House Aviation Subcommittee will hold a hearing titled "Finding the Right Frequency: 5G Deployment & Aviation Safety. |
||
| Industry, legal and think tank events |
|||
| |
Jan. 31 | The Brookings Institution will hold an event titled, "Responsible AI from principles to practice |
|
| Jan. 26 | SIIA will hold an event titled "Emerging Tech and the Privacy-Equity Dilemma |
||
Stories of note:
Big 4 wireless carriers spent $100B on 5G spectrum: Was it worth it?
Online groceries accelerate market share gains as pandemic upends US shopping
Microsoft's cloud outlook suggests IT strength in 2022 as demand soars
Some external links may require a subscription. Links are current as of publication time, and we are not responsible if those links are unavailable later.