IP Democracy: 109th Congress a Bust on Tech Legislation

CNET’s Declan McCullagh and Anne Broache have this good round-up of legislation that the recently adjourned 109th Congress failed to pass. Aside from the pretexting bill, known as the Telephone Records and Privacy Protection Act, pushed through at the 11th hour (and I don’t really consider this to be a tech bill as much as a privacy bill), Internet gambling bill, and the Child Protection and Safety Act, the past Congress, and the last Congress of the 12-year Republican majority, failed to pass much in the way of legislation affecting the tech, Internet or telecom businesses.

Among the legislative topics that had momentum but went nowhere were
1. H1-B Visas, which would have relaxed limits on the guest workers that can be employed, which could have given tech companies a skilled talent hiring boost
2. Web censorship and filtering (and we’re all probably better off that legislative proposals in these areas fizzled)
3. Net neutrality, or more specifically telecom reform legislation that got bogged down by the fight over net neutrality
4. copyright and digital rights management and
5. R&D Tax Credits.

In truth, very few bills make it through both houses in any given congressional session, so this list of legislative flops is not surprising. However, the one bill that stood the greatest chance of passage stands as a pretty clear failure: the telecom reform bill championed by the telcos, passed by the House and almost passed by the Senate. Despite the two years and tens of millions spent by the telcos alone to get this piece of legislation through, it couldn’t make it pass the finish line, even with the over-the-top support of a powerful sponsor, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-AK).

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on December 12, 2006 5:00 AM to IP Democracy