U.S. Chamber Honors 298 Pro-Business Members of Congress with Spirit of Enterprise Award

Lawmakers Recognized for Supporting America’s Job Creators

WASHINGTON, D.C.—At their office on Capitol Hill today, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce honored 248 members of the House and 50 members of the Senate with the annual Spirit of Enterprise Award for their support of pro-jobs, pro-growth policies during the first session of the 112th Congress.

“Faced with difficult choices and high-stakes politics, these men and women provided America’s business community with a strong voice in Congress,” said Thomas J. Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber.  “We honor these members today for having consistently demonstrated their support for America’s job creators.”

The Chamber’s prestigious Spirit of Enterprise Award, in its 24th year, is given annually to members of Congress based on key business issues outlined in the Chamber publication How They Voted.  Members who support the Chamber’s position on at least 70% of those votes qualify to receive the award.

The Chamber scored Congress on 11 Senate and 16 House votes in 2011, including the repeal of 1099 reporting requirements, the 3% withholding from contractors, and the health care law.  Also scored were votes for a surface transportation extension and the free trade agreements, including South Korea and Colombia.

To view a complete list of the 2011 Spirit of Enterprise recipients, please visit www.uschamber.com/soe.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the world’s largest business federation representing the interests of more than 3 million businesses of all sizes, sectors, and regions, as well as state and local chambers and industry associations.

Industries Fear Ripple Effect of Proposed Postal Cuts

Excerpt from an article in

The New York Times

Monday, March 26, 2012

Industries Fear Ripple Effect of Proposed Postal Cuts

By RON NIXON

WASHINGTON — Wine wholesalers and amateur beer makers want Congress to repeal a law that makes it illegal to ship alcohol by mail.

Giant insurers like Aegon of the Netherlands want to make sure that the United States Postal Service stays out of the insurance business. And medical supply companies like Medco oppose the post office’s plans to cut Saturday delivery, saying the move would delay medicines and could add to the cost of mail-order drugs.

As Congress begins work this week on legislation to shore up the finances of the debt-ridden post office, companies representing a cross-section of American business are spending millions of dollars lobbying lawmakers to oppose or support various proposals to keep the agency afloat.

In total, lobbying disclosure records show that companies and unions with a stake in a postal overhaul have spent nearly $300 million in the last three years as the financial condition of the post office has worsened, though it is not known how much of that was spent specifically on postal issues.

The service is the backbone of a mailing and shipping industry that employs more than 8.5 million people and supports almost $1 trillion in economic activity every year. The service itself employs 574,000 people.

Nearly every business relies on the post office to deliver packages, advertise services and send out bills. This postal supply chain supports millions of American jobs in fields as diverse as banking, agriculture, media and manufacturing.

Benjamin Y. Cooper, a lobbyist with the Williams & Jensen firm in Washington, and a coordinator for the Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service, said the level of interest shown in post office reform is understandable, given its importance to the economy.

Senate Seeks to Toughen JOBS Bill, Aimed at Easing Rules on Start-Ups

Excerpt from an article in

The New York Times

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Senate Seeks to Toughen JOBS Bill, Aimed at Easing Rules on Start-Ups

By EDWARD WYATT

WASHINGTON — A decade after the dot-com bubble popped and Enron became synonymous with spectacular fraud, Congress is on the verge of scrapping numerous safeguards against investment fraud and allowing some small companies to sell stock to the public with minimal disclosure or oversight.

The bill, which intends to make it easier for emerging companies to raise money and court investors, is scheduled for several procedural votes in the Senate on Tuesday and could come to a final vote as early as this week. A Senate amendment that differs substantially from a bipartisan version passed overwhelmingly by the House two weeks ago, faces a difficult hurdle.

The amendment must get 60 votes on Tuesday to revise the House bill, and it is unclear that Democrats will be able to attract enough Republican votes.

The JOBS Act, whose acronym stands for Jump-start Our Business Start-ups, has attracted widespread support on Capitol Hill and from the White House for its promise of attracting small-business investment and allowing businesses to hire workers. That it would give legislators something positive to take home to constituents during election season is a bonus.

But the bill faces stiff opposition from, among others, the chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, pension funds and lobbying groups like the American Association of Retired Persons, which fear that the bill will revive some of the worst practices of the dot-com era.

Mobile Apps Take Data Without Permission

Excerpt from an article in The New York Times
Thursday, February 16, 2012

Mobile Apps Take Data Without Permission 

By NICOLE PERLROTH and NICK BILTON

SAN FRANCISCO - The address book in smartphones - where some of the user's most personal data is carried - is free for app developers to take at will, often without the phone owner's knowledge.

Companies that make many of the most popular smartphone apps for Apple and Android devices - Twitter, Foursquare and Instagram among them - routinely gather the information in personal address books on the phone and in some cases store it on their own computers. The practice came under scrutiny Wednesday by members of Congress who saw news reports that taking such data was an "industry best practice."

Apple, which approves all apps that appear in its iTunes store, addressed the controversy on Wednesday after lawmakers sent the company a letter asking how approved apps were allowed to take address book data without users' permission. Apple's published rules on apps expressly prohibit that practice.

But in its statement about the issue, Apple did not address why those apps that collect address book data had been approved.

In that statement, Tom Neumayr, an Apple spokesman, said: "Apps that collect or transmit a user's contact data without their prior permission are in violation of our guidelines. We're working to make this even better for our customers, and as we have done with location services, any app wishing to access contact data will require explicit user approval in a future software release."

The Federal Trade Commission regulates the use of consumers' data on the Internet, and in the past it has sanctioned big companies like Facebook and Google over privacy issues. It said Wednesday that it would make no comment about the app makers' practices.

Digital Security Bills Bruised by Antipiracy Fight

Excerpt from an article in The New York Times
Thursday, February 09, 2012

Digital Security Bills Bruised by a Lingering Antipiracy Fight 

By SOMINI SENGUPTA

The ghosts of two doomed antipiracy bills hang over a new and unrelated issue on Capitol Hill: proposed legislation to help secure the nation’s nuclear plants, water systems and other essential infrastructure from hackers and terrorists.

In both houses of Congress, legislation is gaining steam that would authorize the federal government to regulate the security of privately owned critical infrastructure, much of which is controlled by Internet-connected systems and susceptible to being hacked. The legislation is already riven by competing interests and fears.

National security interests want the government to be able to collect and analyze information from private companies about how they protect themselves from attack. Those companies are skittish about government regulation generally. Civil liberties advocates warn against excessive information-gathering by the state in the name of computer security.

And members of Congress are wary of taking any steps that could infuriate the Internet lobby, which scored a surprise victory against would-be antipiracy laws last month.

Representative Dan Lungren, Republican of California, who recently introduced a computer security bill, acknowledged that Capitol Hill had learned some lessons about the new political muscle of technology companies and their users.

“One of the things we learned is that we have to raise the debate such that no one believes things are being done behind closed doors,” Mr. Lungren said in a phone interview.

A Congressional aide who did not want to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media, put the lessons of the antipiracy efforts more bluntly. Some members, the aide said, “were kind of scarred by that experience and don’t want to go down any road where they are viewed as regulating the Internet.”

Obama Defies Lawmakers with Recess Appointments to Labor Board

The following was gleaned from an article published by The Hill.

Obama defies lawmakers with recess appointments to labor board

January 5, 2012

The Hill

President Obama will recess-appoint his nominees to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), bypassing a likely filibuster from Senate Republicans to keep the controversial agency operating in 2012.

The president will use recess appointments to install Sharon Block, Richard Griffin and Terence Flynn as NLRB members. Block and Griffin are Democrats, while Flynn is a Republican.

The NLRB announcement came a few hours after the president made a public show of another recess appointment, for Richard Cordray, the new director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Republicans reacted with fury to that appointment, which the White House promptly ignored by making three more. 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) blasted the president’s decision and said he is stripping the Senate of its oversight powers, since the NLRB nominees had not been vetted in a hearing.

The NLRB appointments are a huge victory for Obama’s union allies, which urged the president to use any means necessary to keep the NLRB functioning. Without additional members, the NLRB would have lacked the three-member quorum needed to issue rules and regulations.

Unions had been frustrated by the president’s moves on trade and regulations in 2011, and the NLRB appointments could help wipe the slate clean ahead of the 2012 campaign.

But the move also puts Obama at odds with business, which has clashed repeatedly with the NLRB in recent months. Bruce Josten, the chief lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, denounced the recess appointments as political favoritism and said they will “further poison the well” at the labor board. 

The president is wading into uncharted waters with the appointments, made while the Senate is holding pro forma sessions. Dave Hirschmann, a top official with the Chamber, said a court battle over the constitutionality of Obama’s action is a near certainty.

The GOP’s blockade of NLRB nominees would have prevented it from issuing rules and regulations, since it needs at least three members to form a quorum. The recess appointment of Craig Becker expired Tuesday, leaving the NLRB with only two members.

With Block, Flynn and Griffin now members of the NLRB, the labor board is up to its full roster of five members.

Republicans tried to prevent recess appointments by keeping the Senate in pro forma session over the holiday break, but the White House said that maneuver is meaningless.

Lawyers for several business groups immediately began to explore their legal options to challenge the recess appointments.