Doyle improves odds of addressing net neutrality

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle couldn’t muster the support he needed last term to restore Obamaera net neutrality rules, but Congress is different now, and so is his position in it.

Mr. Doyle, D-Forest Hills, on Tuesday became chairman of the Communications and Technology Subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

That gives him control of a wide swath of the legislative agenda dealing with telecommunications, the broadcast industry, broadband spectrum issues and technology research and development.

“After eight years serving in the minority, I’m excited for the opportunity to set the committee’s agenda on these issues rather than just playing defense,” Mr. Doyle said. “I’m looking forward to working with my colleagues to promote policies that benefit consumers, small businesses and innovators, as well as to conduct effective oversight of the Trump administration.”

He also will serve as a senior member of the committee’s Energy Subcommittee.

The combination is perfect for someone representing Pittsburgh, a center of innovation for the energy and technology sectors, Mr. Doyle said in an interview.

“We’ve got Marcellus gas under our feet, and when you think about all the tech companies, to be the chairman of the committee that oversees all of that puts me in a unique role,” he said. “For somebody representing Pittsburgh, I sit on probably the two best subcommittees a person could be on relative to helping to move the economy.”

Addressing net neutrality is one of his priorities, one he failed to accomplish last term when no Republicans would support the effort. Now his party controls the agenda, giving a fresh boost to his effort to prohibit internet service providers from blocking, speeding up or slowing web traffic based on content.

That prohibition had been in effect during the Obama administration, but the Federal Communications Commission overturned it last year, saying that it discouraged innovation and that the free market should guide the evolution of the internet.

“The rules were implemented so internet service providers wouldn’t block the content of their competitors or create faster lanes” for their business partners, Mr. Doyle said. “It’s so the guy in the garage that comes up with the app that’s going to change the world will have the same access to the internet as the company that’s more established.”

His other priorities for the subcommittee include controlling the collection and use of digital data that companies collect through apps, social media platforms, geographic positioning devices, biotechnology services such as through 23andMe, wearable technology, and more.

“Right now Fitbit is collecting information on whether you exercise or don’t exercise. The question is who owns the data, and do they have the right to [share] that data,” he said.

Part of his concern grew over revelations that Facebook had been harvesting user data and providing it to Cambridge Analytica, which used it to target pro-Trump political ads in the 2016 election.

“Somebody’s got to say what it is people can and can’t do,” Mr. Doyle said.

Click-through terms-ofuse agreements aren’t enough, he said.

“When you click on the ‘I agree’ button, there’s 16 pages of legal language behind that. I believe there should be language in the terms and conditions that is clear and concise,” Mr. Doyle said.

The subcommittee also has jurisdiction over the FCC, an agency the new chairman has gone head-tohead with before. They clashed first over net neutrality and later when Mr. Doyle filed a complaint about FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s participation in a conference, which the congressman believed violated a law prohibiting federal employees from using their offices to campaign for or against candidates. The Office of Special Counsel cleared Mr. Pai.

In other congressional news, three Pennsylvanians now have seats on one of the House’s most influential committees in Congress.

U.S. Reps. Dwight Evans and Brendan Boyle, both DPhiladelphia, are among 10 newly appointed Democratic members of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. They join U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Butler, a veteran member who on Wednesday was elevated to ranking member of the Oversight Subcommittee.

“I am enormously honored … to serve as an official guardian of America’s precious taxpayer dollars,” said Mr. Kelly, a fiscal conservative and Donald Trump loyalist who worked on the committee last year to pass the president’s tax-cut plan.

The Oversight Subcommittee has jurisdiction over the Internal Revenue Service and oversees policy implementation in a number of areas, including trade, health, worker and family support, and Social Security.

Lawmakers covet appointments to Ways and Means because of the committee’s influence on economic policy.

Pennsylvania — the Philadelphia region, in particular — has had a consistent presence on the committee for several years.

“Pennsylvania is well-represented on Ways and Means,” said Mr. Kelly, who has been a member of the panel since 2013. It’s important, he said, to have state delegation members on committees with strong jurisdiction “to make sure the policies they come up with are in fact sound policy that continues to allow us to move forward.”

Democrats and Republicans are likely to spar over a lot of issues, including an effort to make the president’s tax returns public, which Democrats like Mr. Evans support and Republicans do not.

But Mr. Kelly said he expects that the Oversight Subcommittee, chaired by U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., will not be partisan.

“Our job isn’t to be the strongest Democrat in the room or the strongest Republican in the room, but to be a strong American and a watchdog for the taxpayers,” he said. “For me, this has nothing to do with any partisanship. This has to do with making sure we protect the American taxpayers.”