From: Politico
By TONY ROMM
The reelection of President Barack Obama along with another politically divided Congress means the tech policy battles from the past few years are going to intensify, even if a few of the faces fighting are about to change.
During a second term, Obama can capitalize on new momentum to push his agenda to boost the country’s cybersecurity defenses, improve the nation’s wireless system and develop rules to assuage consumers’ online privacy fears.
But greeting Obama 2.0, so to speak, will be a new cast of characters with a familiar story — a Congress with some fresh faces, yet the partisanship that’s stymied tech legislation in sessions past.
With the election results still fresh, there are some early takeaways for tech.
The administration can double down on its tech policy program.
This election didn’t hinge on tech and telecom issues, but it’s safe to say Obama’s return to the White House means the administration is going to forge ahead to ensure its plans — many years in the making — soon come to fruition.
That’s especially the case with cybersecurity, a matter that has stalled for years on Capitol Hill. If anything, Tuesday’s outcome may serve as a green light for the White House as it weighs a draft executive order to improve the digital defenses of power plants, water systems and other forms of critical infrastructure.
The White House would have preferred lawmakers to lead the way on cybersecurity, but there’s little hope Congress can make any progress in an otherwise jam-packed lame-duck session. That’s why the administration has spent months laying the groundwork for a potential executive order, said former White House cyber adviser Howard Schmidt.
“There’s been a really good push, appropriately so, to get a better sense from private sector of what would help them,” said Schmidt, noting that sets the stage for what could be a move before year’s end.
The administration’s former cybersecurity leader added the Obama administration — in the event of a Romney win on Tuesday — probably would have nixed its plans. “To do it and have it potentially undone, I don’t think benefits anyone,” Schmidt said.
Beyond cybersecurity, a second Obama administration can continue working to improve the pathways for wireless access to more airwaves. And the administration can press on with its lengthy process to bring order to the e-commerce ecosystem, through an industry-driven process to set rules for companies collecting, using and sharing consumer data.
By contrast, the GOP platform backed by Romney questioned the merit of the administration’s work on universal service, while stakeholders felt his White House would have scrutinized its work on online privacy, tossed its net neutrality rules and taken a second look at Obama’s other tech initiatives.
There will be new leadership on tech issues in Congress.
A tectonic shift is about to rock key congressional committees, bringing in a cadre of new faces that are sure to tackle tech and telecom problems differently than did their predecessors.
The departure of Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) from Congress at the end of the year means there’s an opening atop the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, which led chamber debate on cybersecurity reform. And the fact Republicans didn’t take control of the Senate means Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the panel’s top GOP member, is poised to be term-limited out of that seat.
Democratic Sen. Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, the chairman of the chamber’s top antitrust subcommittee, also is leaving at the end of the year. That means a vacancy opens on a panel that has heavily scrutinized AT&T’s failed bid for T-Mobile and Google’s search-industry dominance, among other matters.
And the resignation of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) could set up Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) to lead his party on the Senate Commerce Committee — a change that could produce more partisanship on a panel that’s led on online privacy and telecom regulations.
In the House, meanwhile, the Democratic and Republican benches on the Energy and Commerce Committee are about to change. That’s particularly the case with the panel’s Oversight subcommittee — the subcommittee chaired in the 112th Congress by Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), who lost in his primary. Top tech insiders say it’s a subcommittee to watch, as it historically steers the broader, political direction of Energy and Commerce.
“If you look back at the Dingell days … it can be a very powerful subcommittee with a lot of influence over the agenda of the larger committee,” said Gregg Rothschild, managing director at the Glover Park Group, who formerly served as a top Democratic aide on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “And if a very able chairman takes the helm of that subcommittee, that could make a difference in the next Congress.”
Even though Obama is returning to the White House, his cabinet also is poised to change in a second term. That could mean serious shifts in the leadership at agencies like the FCC and the FTC.
In particular, sources have told POLITICO that FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz is thinking about an exit early next year, especially once the agency finishes its antitrust investigation of Google. Leibowitz, however, told POLITICO last week he has no plans at the moment to leave.
An early fight: High-skilled immigration.
There’s little at the moment to suggest the political dynamics of Capitol Hill are bound to change fundamentally from last year. But there could be a few early openings for lawmakers to post at least some progress on key tech and telecom issues — including high-skilled immigration.
It’s a politically sensitive topic, but lawmakers made some progress before the election break in getting a bill to the House floor. It didn’t pass, of course, but the mood in Washington after Election Day might give the measure some kind of boost.
On one hand, House Republicans “have made the decision to cut the Gordian knot on immigration,” said Ralph Hellmann of the Lugar Hellmann Group, referring to the tie between high-skilled immigration reform and other, thornier issues about illegal immigration. “I think if it doesn’t get resolved in the lame duck,” he said of the high-skilled bill that lagged in the House before the election break, it would be “one of the first things the House Republicans do” next year.
However, Hellmann pointed to a changing dynamic on the House Judiciary Committee — which might be led by the more compromise-minded Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) — as evidence the issue has political legs in 2013. But, he also added there’s a chance Obama seizes on new momentum to tackle issues related to the DREAM Act, along with high-skilled immigration reform.
If that’s the case, Obama might have critical Democratic cover.
“A lot of the Democrats in the House in 2009 who didn’t want to do immigration have lost their seats,” Rothschild said. “And if the president wins a close election with strong support from Latino voters, then [Obama] might have more latitude from his party to be more aggressive on the issue.”
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