Red Tape Reduction and Small Business Job Creation Act

Floor Speech

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Mrs. BONO MACK. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I rise in strong opposition to this amendment offered relating to privacy regulations, midnight privacy rules, and consent decrees. At a time when many of us are fighting attempts by the United Nations to regulate the Internet, lo and behold, some in Congress would have us do the exact opposite. The Conyers amendment would open the door for new, burdensome, and potentially job-killing regulations on the Internet. We don't need the United States stifling Internet freedom any more than Russia, China, or India.

As chairman of the subcommittee with primary jurisdiction over this issue, I've convened multiple hearings on online privacy and had countless conversations with stakeholders. And there is one thing that absolutely everyone agrees on: don't mess up a great thing.

E-commerce continues to flourish, creating jobs for millions of Americans and providing a tremendous boost to an otherwise stagnant economy. This amendment could put all of that success in jeopardy, stifling future innovation and growth.

I'd like to remind my colleagues that an agency could still promulgate rules on privacy so long as they are not considered ``significant'' as defined in the bill. But what we don't need is a system where dueling bureaucrats, the FTC and the FCC, impose conflicting and confusing rules for consumers.

While the amendment sounds as if it is narrowly tailored to exempt privacy regulations from the interim prohibitions on new regulations and midnight rules, the term ``privacy'' is nonetheless undefined. That's the very definition of ``loophole'' and opens the back door to government intervention and regulation.

Soon, the House will consider my legislation telling the United Nations, Russia, China and others to keep their hands off the Internet. Today, let's tell the United States that very same thing.

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