Blumenthal Applauds President Biden's Executive Actions to Promote Competition in the U.S. Economy
[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) applauded President Joe Biden’s executive actions to promote competition in the American economy:
“President Biden is decisively pushing back against ever-growing corporate giants, and taking comprehensive action to ensure our growing economy benefits America’s consumers, workers, and small businesses.”
“Today’s executive actions reflect the urgent need to stem the tide of increasing consolidation and rising monopoly power in our economy. I’ve long called on the FTC and DOJ to not only thoroughly scrutinize new acquisitions and mega mergers, but to also set clear competition rules and conduct a retrospective review to clean up the existing mess. I’m glad the President recognizes this need for bold, aggressive action against Big Tech, health care, pharmaceutical, banking, aviation, and other giant industry mega mergers that hurt consumers, workers, and competition.”
“President Biden is tackling head-on the myriad anti-consumer practices and abuses by broadband companies that have increased prices and limited internet service choices. I applaud President Biden for calling for the FCC to restore the net neutrality rules decimated by the previous administration to ensure the internet remains open. This Executive Order is a blueprint for restraining Big Tech, calling for enforceable FTC rules to end their invasive data collection that has been so damaging to our democracy, privacy, and civil rights.”
“Congress must urgently build on these bold actions and codify them into law. Without Congressional action, an economy benefitting the American people remains a dream—not a reality.”
Today, President Biden is taking several executive actions focused on promoting competition in the U.S. economy, including:
- Strengthening Action Against Harmful Mega Mergers and Anti-Competitive Practices: President Biden’s Executive Order outlines a number of actions to more thoroughly scrutinize Big Tech, banking, health care, and other big industry mega mergers to prevent consolidation that harms our economy. The Executive Order outlines the Biden Administration’s policy of increased scrutiny of mergers and recognizes that the law allows the DOJ and FTC to challenge prior bad mergers. This includes greater scrutiny of mergers among Big Tech companies seeking to acquire nascent competitors, serial mergers, accumulation of data, competition by “free” products, and the effect on user privacy. It encourages the FTC to establish rules on surveillance and the accumulation of sensitive personal information and related data by Big Tech platforms. The Executive Order encourages DOJ and other agencies to update guidelines on banking mergers to provide more robust scrutiny of mergers. The Executive Order also emphasizes that hospital mergers can be harmful to patients and encourages the DOJ and FTC to review and revise merger guidelines to ensure patients are not harmed by such mergers.
Blumenthal is a member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, and a cosponsor of the Competition and Antitrust Law Enforcement Reform Act to promote competition and improve antitrust enforcement. The legislation would give federal enforcers the necessary resources to improve enforcement, strengthen prohibitions on anticompetitive conduct and mergers, and make additional reforms to improve enforcement.
- Restoring Neutrality of the Internet: President Biden’s Executive Order directs the FCC to restore net neutrality rules undone by the Trump Administration to avoid discriminatory blocking or slowing down of online services by internet providers. The Obama-Biden Administration implemented net neutrality rules requiring internet companies to treat all internet services equally.
Blumenthal has been a staunch advocate of net neutrality and pushed back against the repeal of net neutrality rules when the move was first announced by the Trump Administration in 2017.
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