A possible preview of U.S. President Donald Trump's tech agenda was on display during a 25 Feb. confirmation hearing in the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation for Federal Trade Commissioner nominee Mark Meador and Office of Science and Technology Policy nominee Michael Kratsios.
Approximately a month into Trump's second term, the administration has flipped the script on its approach to tech enforcement and U.S. policy stances with an eye toward fostering more innovation and competition. If confirmed, Meador and Krastois will be in the thick of shaping the U.S. approach and response to the ever-evolving digital ecosystem.
The line of questioning among Senate committee members to both nominees generally suggested there is room for bipartisanship in the areas of children's online safety, supporting artificial intelligence and quantum computing development, and antitrust enforcement to promote greater competition.
Top priorities of the FTC nominee
Meador said one of his biggest priorities, if confirmed, is enforcing the existing Children's Online Privacy Protection Act Rule. That statute was recently updated under former President Joe Biden's administration to account for technological advancements and tightening parental consent requirements, among other changes.
Under questioning from U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., Meador committed to the FTC's role in enforcing COPPA, as well as assisting in drafting new FTC enforcement mechanisms under potential "COPPA 2.0" legislation Markey has backed.
"I think protecting children is one of the most important missions for both the FTC and Congress and would love to help your office on that," Meador said.
The Meador questioning briefly ventured to the topic of what the FTC's role would be enforcing a national comprehensive data privacy law, and if it would involve coordination with state attorneys general. He was asked if he would support such a law if it preempted existing state privacy laws.
"I believe that's ultimately a decision for Congress to make at the time that it would pass a federal privacy law to put structures in there governing coordination with state (attorneys general)," Meador said. "The first step is to view it through the lens of our existing enforcement authorities. The FTC has the ability to police unfair and deceptive practices, and we know that AI is already being used to turbo charge many (data privacy vulnerabilities), and so it's incumbent upon the FTC to keep a close eye on that activity and to make sure we're not letting anything slip through the cracks."
Democrats question Meador on FTC independence
By and large the committee's hearing did not feature the divisive rhetoric among lawmakers that has defined recent political discourse in Washington, D.C., during the last several administrations. However, several Democrats pressed Meador if he supported the independence of the FTC as a federal agency from the White House.
The Trump administration has sought to end a 90-year Supreme Court precedent known as "Humphrey's Executor," under which a president was only allowed to remove the leadership of independent federal agencies for cause-related offenses.
Committee Chair Ted Cruz, R-Texas, claimed during the hearing that the Humphrey's decision was "wrongly decided" after being prompted by Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M.
Meador generally deflected the questions regarding the FTC's independence because the matter is currently subject to litigation. However, FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson has already issued a statement supporting the Trump administration's rejection of Humphrey's Executor in an interview with Axios.
"I agree with some of the scholarship of Justice Elena Kagan on this," Meador said. "(Kagan has) written about presidential administration and made the observation that direct presidential control in federal agencies increases democratic accountability, and I believe on Nov. 5, the American people give a very clear signal that they want greater accountability in how the federal government is administered."
M&A, antitrust stances
On 18 Feb. FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson announced the agency would renew the existing 2023 joint Merger Guidelines with the Department of Justice, which serve as the framework for the merger review analysis it undertakes. Meador said he supported the FTC's renewed merger posture.
Under questioning from Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., during the hearing Meador said the FTC promoting increased competition in the development of AI will lead to better models that have less of a propensity toward bias and other hallucination actions.
"The best thing the FTC can do within its remit is to fully enforce the competition laws to ensure that markets are not unduly concentrated or dominated by a single actor and that consumers have a choice," Meador said. "We can trust that the market will work if we give it a chance, but that means we have to maintain competition so that consumers can take their business elsewhere if they're unhappy with the services they receive."
In terms of antitrust enforcement, Meador declined to comment directly on the existing antitrust lawsuits against Big Tech firms, such as Amazon, Meta and Google, citing the ongoing litigation.
"While I can't commit to any specific action, obviously I share the concerns that the agency is seeking to address," Meador said. "There's a lot of important work on its docket, and I can commit to taking that very seriously and confirm to ensure we're doing everything we can to enforce the law."
OSTP coordination on AI, advanced tech policy
During questions directed at Kratsios, lawmakers inquired about coordinating policies for AI and other advanced technologies throughout the federal government, as well as promoting technological research among the public, private and academic sectors.
Under questioning from Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., Kratsios was asked about developing and leading the U.S. AI strategy. Rosen pressed him on the capabilities of generative AI developed by adversarial countries, such as China, to extract users' sensitive data, and what minimum security requirements AI used by U.S. citizens should have to best protect their personal data.
"It's critical at least for the government to be thinking very carefully on how to work with these individual model developers, to think through some of these issues," Krastios said. "One of the most important, things that the federal government can do is support the measurement science necessary in order to be able to test and evaluate these models. And an agency like (the National Institute of Standards and Technology) is a great place to refine the measurement science around model evaluation."
Additionally, Kratsios was asked by Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., if he maintains his support for the 2020 Trump executive order on AI, which required federal agencies to publish AI use-cases to ensure compliance with civil rights and civil liberties, in part. Kratsios said he supports the order, in principle, but thought it should evolve instead to categorize federal government AI uses by risk categories.
"Something to think about with those (AI inventories) is that AI is becoming more and more pervasive across everything that we do as Americans, and everything that individual people and civil servants do across government, so maybe a more valuable sort of list going forward would be a categorization of high impact use cases," Krastios said. "That way, you’re not inundated every reference to the next (Microsoft) Copilot use in an employee's browser."
Alex LaCasse is a staff writer for the IAPP.
