'This Will Gut the FTC': Republicans Push Musk-Backed Plan to Kill Key Antitrust Law
"Jim Jordan and House Judiciary Republicans are directly undermining both current and future litigation against the monopolies that gouge and censor Americans."
House Republicans are set to consider legislation on Wednesday that experts say would effectively eliminate a law that gives the Federal Trade Commission sole authority to protect the American public from corporations engaging in "unfair methods of competition."
The GOP-controlled House Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), released the bill Monday as part of a sweeping, filibuster-proof reconciliation package that Republicans are looking to pass as soon as next month.
The new bill states that "all FTC antitrust actions, all FTC antitrust employees, all FTC antitrust assets, and all FTC antitrust funding" must be "transferred to the attorney general." The proposal is virtually identical to Republican legislation that Elon Musk, a lieutenant of President Donald Trump and the richest person in the world, endorsed earlier this year.
Matt Stoller, research director at the American Economic Liberties Project, observed Monday that the House Judiciary Committee measure is "not just a bill to change the office locations and reporting structures." Specifically, Stoller noted that the bill doesn't explicitly transfer to the Justice Department the FTC's authority under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act to combat "unfair methods of competition."
"That authority," Stoller wrote, "remains with an agency that has no staff and no capacity to litigate, which means it could die."
Alvaro Bedoya, who is currently engaged in a legal fight to get his job back at the FTC after Trump fired him and another Democratic commissioner last month, echoed Stoller's concerns, writing on social media that the Republican bill "doesn't transfer the laws that FTC enforces, or authority to enforce those laws."
"This will gut the FTC," Bedoya wrote, noting that the agency's legal action against pharmacy benefit managers—pharmaceutical industry middlemen—would likely be among the casualties of the Republican bill, given that "the sole law that the FTC alleges was broken in all three counts was that core prohibition against 'unfair methods of competition.'"
Stoller pointed out in his blog post that Section 5 is also used "in the antitrust case against Amazon" and "another case against Corteva/Syngenta over exclusive dealing in seeds and chemicals." It was also "the authority used to ban noncompete agreements," he wrote.
"These cases, as well as every consent decree ever reached under Section 5, are now at risk," Stoller added.
The House Judiciary Committee is slated to mark up the legislation on Wednesday afternoon, starting at 2:00 pm ET.
Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, said in a statement Monday that the measure as a whole is "laden with language attempting to protect corporate wrongdoers."
"One provision appears to effectively eliminate the FTC pro-competition division," said Gilbert. "Another set of provisions makes significant changes to the already overreaching Congressional Review Act. One measure says that major rules that raise revenue go into effect only if Congress proactively approves them. Another section says for the next four years Congress has to affirmatively approve rules for them not to expire."
"If made law," she warned, "this would sign a death warrant for a slew of important consumer, worker, and environmental protections."
