House Full Session Passes Three Bills on Cybersecurity, Privacy, and A.I.

The House of Representatives passed three bills centered around cybersecurity, privacy, and regulation of AI use by businesses after a lengthy full House session. 

The full House met on Saturday, January 13th in order to present resolutions passed both in House committees and the Senate floor.

The first bill, titled the Education and Cybersecurity Help Overall, or ECHO Act, aims to tackle the rising issue of cyber attacks through the implementation of new education and more sustainable cybersecurity measures.

The second bill is the Protect our Privacy, or POP Act, which codifies existing legislation to ensure the government does not invade on rights including same-sex marriage and the right to contraception.

The final bill discussed on the floor was the Man Over Machine, or MOM Act, which intends to protect the working class through imposing taxes on large companies who replace their workers with AI. The three bills were debated extensively, and all were eventually passed.

The ECHO Act was the first bill that passed today at the House of Representatives meeting. The authors of this bill included Nancy Mace (R-SC01), Glenn Grothman (R-WI06), Virginia Foxx (R-NC05), and Lisa McClain (R-MI09). As Glenn Grothman stated in the press conference, “this bill… makes the resources that we already have the research done by federal bodies publicly available so that corporations can use them to bolster our national security and prevent us from cyber threats.”

Some members of the house were worried that making information public would make the US susceptible to cyber attacks. Mace clarified that the bill would in no way make private information such as social security numbers or contact information public. The bill would simply make the tools to prevent cyberattacks public: explaining what cookies are, reading the terms and agreements, and being aware of multi-factor authentication. 

While the authors were presenting their bill,  they heavily emphasized the importance of education surrounding cyber security, with Lisa McLean saying, “This is our responsibility, not only as parents, but as representatives of the US government, to best equip our country's children with the tools to navigate the cyber lens”.

They are looking to incorporate lessons about cybersecurity into high school classrooms in order to spread awareness about this topic. As for funding, they are reallocating funds from the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense. 

The POP Bill provides privacy for all Americans in purchasing contraceptives as well as in personal relationships, stating that “all companies that share or gather information of American citizens must publicly disclose this information in reports to the Federal Communications Commission” along with the purposes for the collection of said information.

Additionally, the codification for the protection of same-sex and interracial marriage from strikedown by SCOTUS was also brought to attention in this bill. In light of the recent Dobbs case, these rights were in jeopardy of jurisdiction of the Supreme Court where they could potentially strip their legality, meaning that they were of utmost importance to many members to protect.

Democrats and Republicans were ultimately able to come to a bipartisan agreement with this bill, despite the Republican argument that contraceptives came too closely related to abortion rights and limited key Republican values. 

The author of this bill, IA Sr, stated that, “our bill basically guarantees that the right to same sex marriage…the right to interracial marriage, the right to contraception- should all be protected and no individual can be penalized for that. And then we also have a section about data collection because I think the right to privacy in a modern world extends to the online sphere… Republicans and Democrats, we realized that we can come together and consensus on this should be protected. This right should be fundamentally protected for all American citizens.”

This bill, though hotly debated because of its’ pertinence to the personal liberties for all citizens in collection of private information as well as personal views held by House representatives on LGBTQ+ and racial equality it ultimately passed by a slight majority. 

The final bill passed came from the House Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. The MOM Act, hopes to regulate the use of AI by large manufacturing companies, in order to protect the working class. 

Authors Judy Chu and Chris Pappas came to the floor to explain their bill and its provisions at length. The MOM Act aims to protect Americans whose jobs are currently threatened by the rise of AI and its implementation in the workforce, by putting a sales tax into effect. This sales tax will be enforced on large manufacturing companies, defined as companies with profits over $1 million, replacing the majority of their workforce with A.I..

The bill states that “an 8% sales tax shall be levied on any transaction in which manufacturing companies sell products where over 50% of the labor hours are credited to AI or robots.” With this tax, Representatives Chu and Pappas believe this will encourage manufacturing tycoons to continue employing humans. While where the income from this tax will be routed exactly is unclear, as of now it is planned to fund other government programs. 

However, Chu and Pappas established that this piece of legislation is not anti-A.I., as the bill allows A.I. to continue to grow while taxing manufacturers who use it negatively. The two emphasized that this bill supports both Republican and Democratic ideals through its support of both the working class and the development of technology.

Additionally, the bill includes a “Sunset Provision,” which stated that the Act and its regulations would be terminated after five years. Chu and Pappas explained this clause was a necessary inclusion in the bill, due to the speed of AI’s development, leaving its future in the workforce uncertain.

After the bill was presented, several representatives took the floor to vocalize their thoughts on the bill. Many spoke against the bill, arguing that the sales tax was not sufficiently effective as a motivator, that robots could complete work more efficiently than humans, and that there is a labor shortage that AI tech has the ability to fill.

An amendment was proposed to increase the sales tax from 8% to 12% to further incentivize businesses, however it was overwhelmingly opposed by the House. Despite these objections, the bill passed in a 48-32 majority with no amendments or additional clauses added, and will be sent to the Senate to be debated at tomorrow’s session.

Following the passing of the MOM act, the Full House Session was adjourned, and the representatives returned to their committees. These representatives will continue their work on new legislation, to be presented at the Full House Session on Sunday, January 14th.

This article was written by Alison Chavez, Kate Sato, and Mackenzie Temple.