In Congress, a raft of 'fix it' ideas
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The House plans to forge ahead on energy legislation even as consensus eludes the Democratic leadership.
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Democrats are aiming for a resolution that is simpler than the Senate's.
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Executives and lobbyists from some  of America's richest and most influential companies are walking  the halls of Congress, buttonholing senators to argue for  strong patents to preserve U.S. innovation.
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Technology lobbying groups are stepping up their push for lawmakers to pass several pieces of legislation.
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The U.S. Congress left behind an  unusually long list of stalled or dead bills -- from energy and  transportation to health care and federal spending -- as  lawmakers went home to ask voters to re-elect them next month.
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This new Congress was supposed to be different. Instead, it is being led by a gaggle of partisan hacks pandering to the same special interests and corporate masters as the previous Republican-led Congress.
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Ridiculed as the "do-nothing" 109th U.S. Congress, the Senate and U.S. House of Representatives on Monday begin a brief session to wrap up whatever work they can, install a new defense secretary and approve money to prevent a shutdown of government services.
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The bond insurer problem must be  fixed, or else it could become a "financial tsunami" that  wreaks havoc on the broader economy, New York Governor Eliot  Spitzer is due to tell the U.S. Congress on Thursday.
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No one is calling 2007 a banner year for the technology industry in the U.S. Congress.Congress passed a handful of bills on many tech vendor and trade group wish lists, but in several cases, they represented partial victories.&quot;This Congress so far has a record of neglect on technology issues,&quot; said Representative Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, whose party lost the majority in Congress in the November 2006 elections.Goodlatte isn&#39;t an impartial observer, but members of the tech community also acknowledge that Congress has been slow to act on tech issues this year. Still, not everyone was expecting great things from a Congress that had to reorganize after the change in party control.It&#39;s too early to judge this session of Congress, which continues through 2008, said Kevin Richards, federal government relations manager at cybersecurity vendor Symantec. &quot;I think we have a lot of interest [from lawmakers], and this has the potential to be a tech-friendly Congress,&quot; Richards said.Members of the tech community point to some success in Congress this year:-- Congress passed the America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science Act, which became law in August. The America Competes Act allocated $43.3 billion for research and math- and science-education programs.-- Congress approved a free-trade agreement with Peru in December, the only such agreement approved this year. Some labor and environmental groups opposed some free-trade agreements, but the pacts are &quot;imperative&quot; for tech vendors, said Sage Chandler, senior director of international trade for the Consumer Electronics Association.The CEA, which launched a campaign against &quot;protectionism&quot; in October, said every trade agreement is important to its members. Upcoming free-trade agreements coming before Congress include Columbia, Panama and South Korea. A handful of CEA members are already doing business in Peru or would like to and between 2000 and 2006 U.S. consumer-electronics exports to Peru increased by 12 percent, Chandler said.&quot;Without the ability to sell into foreign markets and get components from foreign markets, our companies aren&#39;t going to be able to employ Americans,&quot; she said.Some successes the tech community can point to, however, were partial victories:-- Congress, in late October, passed a seven-year extension to a moratorium on access taxes and other taxes unique to the Internet. But many tech ground and lawmakers has pushed for a permanet tax ban, arguing that it was needed to foster Internet and broadband growth.Opponents of a permanent ban successfully argued that it would remove a check on Internet service providers attempting to include other services, such as VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol), in the tax ban. In addition, some lawmakers argued that&#160;a permanent ban could cripple the ability to pay for services.But some lawmakers argued Congress should&#39;ve gone farther. The House of Representatives, which in the past has approved permanent extensions, this year passed a four-year extension and &quot;had to have the Senate show them the way to a better seven-year extension,&quot; Goodlatte said. The &quot;ultimate goal&quot; should be a permanent tax moratorium, he said.-- The Senate in December passed a one-year extension to a research and development tax credit for U.S. companies. The Temporary Tax Relief Act , which the House approved Nov. 9, extends the tax credit, which covers 20 percent of qualified R&amp;D spending. But many tech groups have called on Congress to permanently extend the R&amp;D tax credit, which has been extended a dozen times since 1981.Supporters of an expanded tax credit argue that the U.S. has fallen behind other nations in its R&amp;D support. Once the most generous with R&amp;D tax breaks, the U.S. by 2004 fell to 17th out of the 30 nations of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.But the tax break comes with a price tag of about $7 billion a year, and Congress has been reluctant to extend the program long term. Some government watchdog groups have called the R&amp;D tax credit corporate welfare.But tech groups have said&#160;the R&amp;D tax credit helps keep high-paying tech jobs in the U.S. And companies have a hard time mapping out their R&amp;D when the credit keeps expiring, said Symantec&#39;s Richards. &quot;The on-again, off-again nature of the credit makes it impossible for companies to do the long-term planning that&#39;s needed,&quot; he said.In many other areas, Congress failed to act on legislation many tech groups called for:-- Patent reform: Many large tech companies said&#160;their top priority was for Congress to pass a wide-ranging patent reform bill&#160;that would make it more difficult for patent holders to sue and collect massive infringement awards. The House of Representatives in September passed the Patent Reform Act , which would allow courts to limit patent damage awards if a patented invention is a small piece of a larger product. Among other things, the bill would also allow a new way to challenge patents within one year after they&#39;ve been granted.Supporters of the bill, including Microsoft and IBM, argued that it&#39;s too easy for patent holders who have no intent of marketing an invention to sue large companies and collect multimillion-dollar damages when a small piece of a technology product is found to infringe. &quot;There are people who now just hold patents to sue and not to innovate,&quot; said Symatec&#39;s Richards.Another important piece of the bill would limit where patent holders could file lawsuits, Richards said. Many patent holders file lawsuits in the patent-friendly U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, even though neither the patent holder or the accused infringer is located there.Opponents, including pharmaceutical companies, some small technology vendors and inventors, have successfully stalled the bill in the Senate. They say the bill severely weakens the power of patents.Senate leaders say they will tackle the bill again in January. Opponents will continue to pressure lawmakers, said Ronald Riley, president of the Professional Inventors Alliance, which has enlisted the support of some labor unions.Opponents have talked about finding candidates to run against lawmakers who support the bill, Riley said. &quot;We will have an all-out onslaught on the legislation,&quot; Riley said. &quot;We think we will have to make an example of some legislators.&quot;-- H-1B visas: Another top priority of many tech vendors has been an expansion of the H-1B visa program for skilled foreign workers. The current yearly cap is 65,000 visas, with exceptions for an additional 20,000 graduate students, but in recent years, the cap has been filled before the year begins.Microsoft Chairman&#160;Bill Gates testified before a Senate committee in March, saying the U.S. should not shut out talented workers. &quot;We have to welcome the great minds of this world, not drive them out of this country,&quot; Gates said. &quot;These employees are vital to American competitiveness.&quot;But U.S. tech worker groups such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers-USA (IEEE-USA) have&#160;opposed a higher H-1B cap, arguing that companies use the program to hire foreign workers for less money than unemployed U.S. workers would receive. An H-1B increase to 115,000 was part of a comprehensive immigration bill in the Senate, but that bill stalled over a contentious debate about illegal immigration.-- Data breaches: A&#160;handful of data breach notification and cybercrime bills stalled as Congress focused on other issues. The House approved two antispyware bills, one that created penalties of up to five years in prison for some spyware-like behavior. But the Senate didn&#39;t act on the bills, in part because there are&#160;concerns that the second spyware bill would preempt tougher state laws.-- Net neutrality: Many consumer groups and Internet-based companies continued to&#160;call on Congress to pass a net neutrality law, which would prohibit broadband providers from blocking or slowing competitors&#39; Web content. However, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission has included some net neutrality rules in an upcoming spectrum auction, and both Verizon Wireless and AT&amp;T have recently pledged to allow outside content and devices on their mobile-phone networks.Congress has also examined tougher penalties for copyright infringement, but hasn&#39;t moved legislation forward. With the change in party control, some things have been delayed, and &quot;that was fine with us,&quot; said Art Brodsky, spokesman for Public Knowledge, a consumer-rights group that has opposed tougher copyright penalties.Some observers expect Congress to be more active on tech issues in 2008. It will be an election year, and it will be hard for controversial legislation to move forward, but many tech issues aren&#39;t partisan, Goodlatte said.Passing some tech-related legislation would show some progress, he said. &quot;I would think that the Democratic leadership, in the miserable lack of success they&#39;ve had in passing legislation this year, would be looking for a new approach in the new year,&quot; he said.
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House members can choose from an array of ready-made aids, but many draw from personal experience of constituents.
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Members of Congress are broadening efforts to address problems in the sale of life insurance and mutual funds to young soldiers and other service members.
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A House committee chairman is trying to show his Democratic colleagues that people in the U.S. are not ready to pay the full costs of fixing global warming.
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The bond insurer problem must be fixed, or else it could become a "financial tsunami" that wreaks havoc on the broader economy, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer is due to tell the U.S. Congress on Thursday.
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(InfoWorld) - Opponents of legislation that wouldÂ overhaul the U.S. patent system have enlisted new allies who may cause majority Democrats in Congress to rethink their support of the proposals. Since late July, three labor unions -- the AFL-CIO, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), and the United Steelworkers -- have sent letters to lawmakers saying they oppose two current patent reform bills. Patent reform opponents say they hope their alliance with organized labor, which has a long history of supporting Democrats, will stall the legislation. But representatives ofÂ large tech vendors that are pushing for patent reform say they're confident there will be support for the legislation when Congress returns from summer recess in early September. The committees in both the Senate and the House of Representatives approved versions of a sweeping patent reform bill in July, and House leaders have targeted the patent reform bill for passage by the end of the year. "I think the momentum exists for this thing to move forward," said Joshua Ackil, vice president of government relations for tech trade group the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI). "As folks [in Congress] dive in a little deeper on this issue, they will come around and understand how important patent reform is to the tech sector." In recent sessions of Congress, then-majority Republicans were tugged in two directions when they focused on patent reform bills similar to ones introduced in the current session of Congress. Several high-profile Republicans pushed for patent reform, and won praise from many large tech vendors, but the Republican friendly pharmaceutical industry was staunchly opposed to the bills. By enlisting labor unions, patent reform opponents are trying to put Democrats "in the same situation the Republicans were in," said Ronald Riley, president of the Professional Inventors Alliance, which represents small inventors. Riley's group, along with the American Ingenuity Alliance and other groups, have focused getting unions to back their cause in recent months. Riley portrays patent reform as enabling large tech vendors to steal the ideas of small inventors. "We're tired of these transnationals ripping off our people's work," he said. "We're just warming up." Tech vendors including Microsoft Corp., IBM Corp., and Cisco Systems Inc. have argued that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) too often approves questionable patents, and that it's too easy for patent holders to sue, collect huge damages and shut down product lines that have a small infringing piece. In many cases, patent lawsuits are brought by companies that make all their money by owning patents, critics have said. Cisco spends US$45 million a year defending itself against patent lawsuits, Matt Tanielian, director of government relations for the company, said during a forum in June. "There's a lot of bad patents out there," he said. "When you get sued, you ought to get a fair shake." The letters to Congress from the AFL-CIO and the United Steelworkers focused on two controversial sections of the patent reform legislation in both the House and the Senate. The two groups objected to the way the legislation would change how courts apportion damages when a company is found to infringe a patent. Currently, courts generally consider the value of the entire product when a small piece of the product infringes a patent, but supporters of the bills want Congress to base damages only on the value of the infringing piece. The groups also questioned how the legislation would allow a new way of challenging patents after they're issued, called post-grant review. The bills would allow companies sued for patent infringement a new way to file challenges with USPTO. Representatives of the of the AFL-CIO and United Steelworkers didn't return messages or declined to comment on their recent interest in patent reform. But the AFL-CIO letter alluded to recent efforts of the U.S. government and the U.S. tech industry to prod China to strengthen its intellectual property protections. These two changes "may have a negative impact on innovation and research," the AFL-CIO letter said. "At a time when the Chinese government is constantly being challenged to live up to its intellectual property obligations, we do not want to take actions that may weaken ours." The United Steelworkers letter said nearly 70 percent of patents filed in the U.S. come from manufacturing firms. "These bills would allow an endless loop of legal challenges after patents are awarded that will make it more difficult for U.S. patent holders to prevail against frivolous challenges," the letter said. ITI's Ackil and representatives of two other tech groups said they doubted the unions' opposition would kill patent reform, although Ackil acknowledged that "anyone should be concerned" with opposition from large labor groups. Ackil and a representative of another tech trade group, who spoke on background, questioned the depth of the opposition from the labor unions. "The AFL-CIO has been nowhere on this issue for three years," Ackil said. Democrats knew of the labor concerns before the House Judiciary Committee approved the patent reform bill, added a spokesman for Representative Howard Berman, a California Democrat and primary sponsor of the House patent bill. "Weâre working now to try to understand and deal with any concerns labor may have," said spokesman Gene Smith. "We think that labor will not be opposing the bill when it comes to the floor soon after the House returns from recess." But the labor opposition could lead to changes in the bills, said Bill Mashek, a spokesman for the Coalition for 21st Century Patent Reform, a group that has opposed parts of the current patent bills. "Laborâs voice in the debate is significant and influential," Mashek said. "It shows, in our view, that the bill needs further work to ensure that U.S. manufacturing and innovators have the incentives to invest and develop new products. The concerns of ... organized labor resonate with members across the country and of all political stripes."
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For good or ill, Congress kept to its usual snail's pace on a number of controversial issues ranging from digital copyright to spyware; other government agencies, however, made up for some of the slack.
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The leading House Democrat on education issues proposed revisions yesterday to the No Child Left Behind law that would ease the penalties for public schools that barely miss academic testing targets but tighten another rule that has helped the District and Virginia.
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How Two Conservative Members of Congress Plan to Jump-Start Flagging  Legislation