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☆ US House Republicans face unity test with major energy bill
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( David Morgan | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

WASHINGTON, March 30 (Reuters) - The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote on its first major legislation of the year on Thursday, a partisan energy bill that poses an early test of unity for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's majority. The 175-page measure, dubbed the Lower Energy Costs Act, represents a top 2022 Republican campaign pledge to lower Americans' energy costs by scaling back Democratic President Joe Biden's climate policies and increasing oil and gas production through deregulation. 1 - House Resolution One, is the most important bill to this Congress," Republican Representative August Pfluger of Texas told reporters. Both Republicans and Democrats are keen to pass legislation that streamlines permitting for energy projects, but the disagreement over the House bill reflects gaping divisions over how to do that. "It does absolutely nothing to lower energy costs for American families.

March 23 (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers at a congressional hearing on Thursday accused TikTok of serving harmful content and inflicting "emotional distress" on young users, grilling the Chinese-owned app's CEO on the company's outsized influence on teens. Like other social media platforms, TikTok has long faced scrutiny over its policing of content on the app. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein 1 2Rep. Frank Pallone, a Democrat from New Jersey, said content on TikTok "exacerbated feelings of emotional stress" in children. Pew Research Center said 67% of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 use TikTok, and 16% of all teens say they use the app almost constantly. Reporting by Sheila Dang in Dallas and Rami Ayyub in Washington; Editing by Mark Porter and Lincoln Feast.

☆ TikTok congressional hearing: CEO Shou Chew grilled by US lawmakers
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( David Shepardson | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

TikTok, which has more than 150 million American users, was repeatedly hammered in the ongoing hearing where no lawmaker offered any support. PARENTS UNHAPPYRepresentative Diana DeGette, a Democrat, said TikTok's efforts to prevent the spread of misinformation on the platform were not working. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein 1 2 3 4 5"You gave me only generalized statements that you're investing, that you're concerned, that you're doing work. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives on Twitter said, "TikTok CEO testimony so far we would characterize as a 'mini disaster' for this key moment for TikTok. TikTok is now poster child of the US/China tensions and lawmakers have a lot of q’s with not enough concrete answers."

REUTERS/Evelyn HocksteinMarch 23 (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers at a congressional hearing on Thursday accused TikTok of serving harmful content and inflicting "emotional distress" on young users, grilling the Chinese-owned app's CEO on the company's outsized influence on teens. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican from Washington, kicked off the hearing with TikTok Chief Executive Shou Zi Chew saying that within minutes of creating an account on TikTok, the content algorithm promotes self-harm and eating disorder content, and encourages "dangerous" challenges that can put kids' lives at risk. Rep. Frank Pallone, a Democrat from New Jersey, said content on TikTok "exacerbated feelings of emotional stress" in children. Lawmakers quizzed Chew about whether Americans' user data could be accessed by the Chinese government as well as how it prevented harmful content from reaching young users. Chew later said during the hearing that content such as dangerous challenges were prohibited from TikTok.

☆ US senators reintroduce bill to make daylight saving time permanent
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( David Shepardson | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

WASHINGTON, March 2 (Reuters) - A bipartisan group of 12 U.S. senators on Thursday reintroduced legislation that would make daylight saving time permanent, nearly a year after the Senate voted unanimously to end clock switching. But the bill failed to get a vote last year in the U.S. House of Representatives because lawmakers could not agree on whether to keep standard time or permanent daylight saving time, said Representative Frank Pallone. Some sleep experts say daylight savings time makes it harder to be alert in the morning. Daylight saving time has been in place in nearly all of the United States since the 1960s after being first tried in 1918. The bill would allow Arizona and Hawaii, which do not observe daylight saving time, to remain on standard time.

☆ Privacy and crypto will likely lead tech policy under split Congress as hope for passing ambitious antitrust reforms dwindles
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-27 | by ( Lauren Feiner | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

After what started as a hopeful year for tech policy, the 117th Congress is about to close out its term with many key efforts tabled. That's the case with privacy legislation, where a bill proposed this year gained bipartisan support, passing out of a House committee with a near-unanimous vote. The pair blamed the bills' failure to advance on intense lobbying efforts by the tech industry against them. One prominent bipartisan bill in the Senate would put the CFTC in charge. "But the importance of tech policy issues will still be strong."

☆ Top talkers: These 20 lawmakers spoke the most on the House and Senate floors during the 117th Congress, including Rep. Buddy Carter and Sen. Marsha Blackburn
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-26 | by ( Nicole Gaudiano | Oma Seddiq | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Some lawmakers delivered dozens of floor speeches during the 117th Congress, C-SPAN's tracking showed. Most members don't usually hang out on the House or Senate floor to hear their colleagues' speeches. These House members spoke the most on the House floor during the 117th Congress. "It is my duty to use the House Floor as a vehicle to share their views, needs, and successes. That's because the Senate floor is typically where leaders make announcements to their members on legislation and nominations, among other topics.

☆ Upset the sun sets so early? Blame the House for not voting to make daylight savings time year-round.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( Bryan Metzger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The House could have voted this year to make daylight savings time permanent. The chair of the relevant House committee told Insider he still wants to find "consensus" on the issue. "It's polarizing as hell," Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a key sponsor of the bill, told Insider at the Capitol in December. "I'm just trying to reach a consensus," he told Insider at the Capitol. "The problem is, half the people want standard time, others want daylight [savings time], others don't want to change it at all."

☆ House Republicans say TikTok made misleading claims in briefings on data handling
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-23 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

Washington CNN Business —House Republicans say TikTok may have misled congressional staff in private briefings about the company’s handling of US user data, in a new letter to the short-form video app this week. And it foreshadows how House Republicans, having gained a majority in the 2022 midterm elections, are likely to approach TikTok in the coming months. “Both claims appear to be misleading at best, and at worst, false,” Comer and McMorris Rodgers wrote. Tuesday’s letter calls on TikTok to preserve a broad swath of documents, communications and other records, in a preview of how House lawmakers could investigate the company in the coming months. And it reiterated a half-dozen other requests for information the GOP lawmakers had sent to the company during the summer.

☆ Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tells pissed-off Swifties to demand the Justice Department break up Ticketmaster after Taylor Swift tickets debacle
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Kelsey Vlamis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Lawmakers have previously called for the Justice Department to investigated the company. Take action with @MorePerfectUS," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted after the news broke, directing her followers to a tweet that said: "Tell the DOJ to break Ticketmaster up here." The tweet also included a link to a form that allowed users to sign up to send an email to the Justice Department requesting the investigation. It's time for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate their conduct and move to break them up." The White House has not indicated whether it plans to investigate Live Nation Entertainment, although President Joe Biden indicated last month federal regulators were working to address "junk fees" tacked onto things like entrainment and travel.

☆ Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calls for Ticketmaster-Live Nation 'monopoly' to be broken up in response to Taylor Swift pre-sale controversy
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-15 | by ( Kayla Gallagher | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Pre-sale tickets for Taylor Swift's upcoming "Eras" tour went on sale Tuesday. Ocasio-Cortez took the opportunity to voice longstanding concern about the 2010 merger of Ticketmaster, the ticket sales and distribution company, and Live Nation, the events promoter and venue operator, into Live Nation Entertainment. "We write in support of strong antitrust enforcement by the Biden Administration, including the live event ticket sales marketplace," the letter begins. Social media influencer Ellie Schnitt tweeted, "When Taylor Swift wrote 'the great war' she was actually preparing us for the Battle of Ticketmaster." — Taylor Swift, but also Ticketmaster after its site crashed.

☆ Factbox: No consensus in Congress on making daylight saving time permanent
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-05 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Clocks in the United States will return to standard time at 2 a.m. EDT on Sunday with no consensus on the matter. The current system of daylight saving is good for business, energy efficiency, and the prevention of vehicle accidents." There's some strong science behind it that is now showing and making people aware of the harm that clock switching has. Congress created Daylight Saving decades ago as a wartime effort, now it is well past time to lock the clock and end this experiment." Permanent, year-round Standard Time is the best match for our biological sleep-wake cycle."

☆ U.S. Congress split on making daylight-saving time permanent
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-03 | by ( David Shepardson | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Legislative aides told Reuters they do not expect Congress to reach agreement before the end of the year. Daylight-saving time has been in place in nearly all of the United States since the 1960s. Pallone previously said he backs ending the clock-switching but has not decided whether to support daylight or standard time as the permanent choice. On Sunday, Mexico rolled back its clocks one last time after the passage of a law last week to abolish daylight-saving time. The White House declined to say earlier this year if Biden supports making daylight-saving time permanent.

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