To: Chair Maria Cantwell, Ranking Member Ted Cruz, and Members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation
On behalf of the National Taxpayers Union (NTU), the nation’s oldest taxpayer advocacy organization, we write to express our views on several measures slated for consideration in your committee.
S. 1421, Country of Origin Online Labeling Act (Baldwin, D-WI and Vance, R-OH) – Oppose
This legislation would require products sold online to display their country of origin. There are several problems with this. In many cases, such information is already provided. For example, Amazon has required sellers to provide country of origin information since 2021. More broadly, goods made in the United States typically proudly announce that information. It’s also concerning that the legislation applies only to foreign-made goods, inviting retaliation from our trading partners.
Of even greater concern is the fact that this act would compound the confusion resulting from existing requirements for manufacturers and sellers to provide inaccurate and misleading information to consumers. Country of origin is currently based on where a product is manufactured. That may have worked in the era of Fred Flintstone, but it doesn’t work at all in a modern, Jetsons-style economy. Today, the final production of a good incorporates ideas, designs, and products sourced from around the world. For example, a 2017 study for the U.S. Global Value Chain Coalition found that more than 70 percent of the value of “imported” clothing is actually provided by Americans. Government-mandated labels unfairly exclude their contributions and perpetuate the false perception that we no longer make anything in the United States.
S. 1669, AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act of 2023 (Markey, D-MA and Cruz, R-TX) – Oppose
This act would require new motor vehicles to include AM radios. Government mandates are rarely a good idea, and this is no exception. Carmakers should be free to decide what kind of communications system to include in vehicles based on the desires of their customer base.
S. 1409, Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) (Blumenthal, D-CT and Blackburn, R-TN) and S. 1418, Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0) (Markey, D-MA and Cassidy, R-LA) – Oppose
While Congressional efforts to protect online safety and privacy for young people are laudable, the recently reintroduced KOSA and the amended COPPA 2.0 would significantly increase online surveillance and undermine privacy for youths and adults alike.
The central problem with these two bills is that they seek to address the current lack of privacy in the United States by introducing more tracking. By holding online platforms liable for all sorts of societal ills – from anxiety and depression to eating and substance use disorders – it would force online platforms and even VPNs to snoop on users and restrict online speech. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation points out, the newly revised KOSA would still require age verification, meaning that both children and adults would need to provide sensitive personal or biometric data to establish their identity.
While online safety and privacy must be improved, even more surveillance is not the answer. Congress must view KOSA and COPPA 2.0 for what they are – censorship and surveillance legislation – not online safety bills.