Tensions between top members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Republican leadership have all but doomed the chance Congress will enact an online kids protection bill when lawmakers return after the election.
Remember, the Senate passed a companion bill in July with 91 votes. And several conservatives close to former President Donald Trump also back the measure.
But the dust-up in the House over the Kids Online Safety Act is the latest example of divisions between retiring Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and leadership, particularly House Majority Leader Steve Scalise. The schism has stalled action on tech and other areas under the committee’s purview.
There’s not much love lost between CMR and Scalise. They’re from different wings of the party. And earlier this year, Scalise quashed an effort by the panel to pass a comprehensive data privacy bill that CMR saw as legacy-defining.
The dire outlook for KOSA is just the latest casualty of the differences between the two senior Republicans.
House GOP leaders have a long list of concerns with KOSA, which would force big social media platforms to design products in a way that mitigates harm to younger users.
Foremost among House GOP leadership’s issues is the heart of the bill — imposing a legal “duty of care” on platforms. Republican leaders contend that the approach could be too onerous for companies and lead to them squelching conservative speech.
These concerns were made clear to CMR and Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.), a subcommittee chair who introduced the legislation. The two still decided to go ahead with a Sept. 18 markup to keep the legislation moving. Bilirakis was leading negotiations, but ultimately the decision to hold the markup fell to McMorris Rodgers.
If momentum was the goal, the markup didn’t help.
Energy and Commerce sent the bill to the House floor, but only after amending it by voice vote to narrow the focus to physical harms. The changes outraged some parent groups and Democrats.
Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), who introduced the bill with Bilirakis, complained she might not even be able to support it on the floor.
Some Democrats were even preparing to introduce the broader Senate version as a replacement during the markup. McMorris Rodgers convinced Democrats the bill would face even more opposition if they did, though. She negotiated the voice vote strategy.
Summer Blevins, a spokesperson for Bilirakis, said the office had heard “for months” that the duty of care language needed big changes. Bilirakis and Castor found “a compromise that would address the bulk of those concerns while maintaining the original intent of the bill.”
Spokespeople for Energy and Commerce and Castor declined to comment.
Despite the headwinds, KOSA supporters, including Bilirakis, have floated additional changes to garner increased support in the lame duck. But GOP leaders don’t seem interested.
So what’s next? The bill was originally reported to the House Education and Workforce Committee in addition to Energy and Commerce. GOP leaders are just fine letting another committee, which is unhappy with the power the bill puts in the hands of the Education Department, take its time combing through the text.
