APP STORES IN THE SPOTLIGHT — Senate Judiciary will take up its second major antitrust bill this morning, marking up the Open App Markets Act (S. 2710), legislation to rein in Apple and Google's dominance in mobile app markets. Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.)and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) will offer a manager's amendment to clarify that tech giants can impose user privacy and cybersecurity requirements on app developers (Leah and Rebecca have the full details for Pros). Blumenthal said the manager's amendment "takes into account the concerns that have been raised about privacy and cybersecurity" and predicted "overwhelming support" from the panel. The bill currently has backing from eight other lawmakers, including Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), head of the antitrust subcommittee, and five other Senate Judiciary members. A bevy of groups that accept Apple or Google funding, including ACT — The App Association, the Chamber of Progress and NetChoice, have blasted the bill as a threat to consumer privacy and to the cybersecurity of the Apple iOS and Google Android platforms. All three groups said the amendment failed to solve these problems. Senators have been subject to a whirlwind of lobbying on the bill, with Apple CEO Tim Cook again arranging personal calls to head off the legislation. The Tech Oversight Project — a non-profit funded by the Omidyar Network, the philanthropic venture of eBay co-founder Pierre Omidyar, and the Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes' Economic Security Project — is running TV advertisements starting today . The ad, shown on cable in the D.C. area, pushes back on arguments from Apple, Google, Meta and Amazon that the antitrust bills will harm U.S. national security. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Capitol, House Judiciary's antitrust chair David Cicilline (D-R.I.) is expected to meet with the moderate New Democrats Coalition to discuss the tech antitrust package , two House aides who weren't authorized to speak on the record confirmed to MT. The coalition, chaired by Rep. Suzan Delbene (D-Wash.), includes 21 members from California and Washington — states where large tech companies are headquartered — and it raised concerns about the bills last summer before the House Judiciary markup. HOUSE SCIENCE'S TIME TO SHINE — With amendments percolating and a full House vote tentatively pegged for Friday, Democrats on the House Science Committee are on the cusp of passing their once-in-a-generation overhaul of America's R&D apparatus — and they're already planning for a conference with the Senate, where things get a lot more tricky. — Core priorities: America COMPETES (H.R. 4521), competitiveness legislation serving as the House's response to the Senate's China-focused U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (S. 1260) , is massive, with 600 amendments filed and 260 now under consideration. But many of the package's central pillars relate to bolstering America's slipping R&D infrastructure. That includes legislation passed out of House Science that authorizes large funding increases and structural changes to the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy's Office of Science and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. But wait, there's more! In a call with reporters, staffers representing Democratic leadership on the House Science Committee (who requested anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly) also highlighted provisions to create a government-wide science-and-tech strategy, bolster rural STEM education, help transfer technologies from laboratories to the market and stand up a new microelectronics program at the Department of Energy. — Amendments abound: MT is also watching what happens in the amendments process today and tomorrow. A couple highlights: An amendment widening the bill's exemption of foreign STEM PhD graduates from green card caps to include those with master's degrees, a change seen as key to attracting talent for the semiconductor industry. The staffers said Chair Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) will likely support that provision. Another amendment would direct science agencies to consider not awarding grants to researcher reported to be involved in allegations of sexual harassment — a provision Democratic staffers said Johnson may oppose, either now or in a future conference. — About that conference: While America COMPETES is expected to pass by Friday, an inter-chamber struggle on science issues is just getting started. The House staffers highlighted several thorny areas of disagreement, including over the size and structure of a new NSF technology directorate, security provisions targeting collaborations with Chinese researchers and plans to funnel millions more in science dollars to rural areas. Don't call it a 'China bill': The House and Senate are even split over how to couch the legislation. House Science staffers said their portion of America COMPETES is "over a decade in the making," and that they would've pushed these provisions with or without the current panic over China — a clear driver of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's push for USICA. "It's not that China isn't a global competitor — it is," one staffer said. "But we have many global competitors. And we have things to do at home regardless of that."
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