[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 213 (Wednesday, December 16, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7513-S7516]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Technology

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, yesterday afternoon, the Commerce 
Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the 
Internet held our final hearing of the 116th Congress. The title of 
yesterday's hearing was ``Betting on the Rest: Expanding American 
Entrepreneurship Outside Traditional Hubs,'' and it focused on 
examining where venture capital is being invested in this country and 
where it is not, with an eye to exploring ways to expand investment to 
other parts of the country.
  Over the past 50 years, venture capital has come to play an essential 
role in advancing American entrepreneurism. Venture capitalists have 
provided key funding for startups that have gone on to become some of 
America's most profitable companies. Many of the technologies and 
services we rely on today would not be around if venture capitalists 
hadn't been willing to take a risk on innovation
  However, venture capital investment in the United States has 
traditionally been highly concentrated in certain areas of the country. 
In 2019, California-based companies received 50 percent of all venture-
backed investment in the United States. Just three States--California, 
New York, and Massachusetts--accounted for almost 75 percent of all 
venture-backed investment in the country.
  There are a lot of valid reasons for this investment concentration. 
However, this geographic imbalance also means that a majority of 
regions within the United States are often shut out from the kind of 
investment that creates jobs, revitalizes communities, and enables the 
pursuit of the American dream.
  Without greater access to capital in underserved regions, the flow of 
talent, wealth, and opportunity will continue to move to only a handful 
of coastal cities, and the full reach and diversity of American 
ingenuity will go unrealized. Fortunately, there are a lot of 
individuals in the private sector who are already working to address 
this issue and expand venture-backed investment to other areas of the 
United States, and we had the opportunity to hear from some of them 
yesterday. I was very grateful for their input. We were very pleased to 
have a South Dakota entrepreneur among our panelists.
  I am committed to making sure that the Federal Government serves as a 
help, not a hindrance, to the expansion of venture capital investment. 
I took the reins of the Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on 
Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet at the start 
of the 116th Congress, and I am very proud of the work we have done 
over the past 2 years. We have had a very active Congress, holding 
eight hearings in Washington, DC, as well as a hearing in my home State 
of South Dakota. These hearings have explored everything from broadband 
investment in rural America to the way the social media companies 
filter information on their platforms.
  I have introduced several bills over the past 2 years that have been 
informed by our work at the committee, including the PACT Act, the 
TRACED Act, the Telecommunications Skilled Workforce Act, and the 
STREAMLINE Small Cell Deployment Act.
  A priority of mine over the past several years has been ensuring that 
America stays at the head of the next wave of internet technology, 
which is 5G. In addition to the tremendous technological benefits that 
will result from 5G, staying at the forefront of the 5G revolution will 
bring tremendous economic investment and create a lot of great American 
jobs.
  I spent a lot of time working on this issue when I was chairman of 
the Commerce Committee, and heading up the Communications, Technology, 
Innovation, and the Internet Subcommittee in this Congress has allowed 
me to continue to focus on 5G.
  Last year, I introduced the STREAMLINE Small Cell Deployment Act 
along with the ranking member of the subcommittee, Senator Schatz. Our 
legislation would help expedite the deployment of the small cells that 
are a key part of 5G infrastructure.
  This year, I introduced the Telecommunications Skilled Workforce Act 
to address another part of the 5G equation, and that is ensuring that 
we have the workforce in place to handle the demands of installing and 
maintaining 5G technology.
  As a resident of a rural State, ensuring access to broadband internet 
in rural communities has long been a priority of mine. I introduced 
legislation this year to direct funds from radio spectrum auctions to 
expand rural broadband access. I am continuing my work to ensure that 
rural communities get access to 5G technology.

[[Page S7514]]

  Now, 5G has the potential to offer tremendous benefits to rural 
communities, from expanded access to telehealth services to precision 
agriculture technologies, and I am committed to ensuring that rural 
communities are not left behind in the 5G revolution.
  Pretty much every American has been forced to deal with annoying and 
illegal robocalls. These calls are a major nuisance, and too often, 
they are more than a nuisance. Every day, vulnerable Americans fall 
prey to even more sophisticated scammers and have money or their 
identities stolen.
  I have worked on this issue for years, and in 2019 I introduced the 
Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act, or 
the TRACED Act, along with Senator Markey. While this legislation won't 
stop every robocall, the TRACED Act provides tools to discourage 
illegal robocalls, protect consumers, and crack down on offenders. I am 
very proud that last December, the President signed our legislation 
into law.
  More and more, Americans get news and information from social media 
sites, and particularly during this past election cycle, a lot of 
questions have arisen about the ways that social media platforms are 
filtering the information that we see. Internet platforms have actively 
cultivated the notion that they are merely providing the technology for 
people to communicate and to share their thoughts and ideas, but the 
reality is somewhat different. Sites like Facebook and Twitter make use 
of sophisticated content-moderation tools, algorithms, and 
recommendation engines to shape the content that we see on these 
platforms.
  Now, content moderation can certainly improve the user experience. 
Most of us would prefer that YouTube recommend videos that match our 
interest. The problem is, the content moderation has been and largely 
continues to be a black box, with consumers having little or no idea 
how the information they see has been shaped by the sites they are 
visiting.
  Last year, I chaired a subcommittee hearing on this issue, and the 
information we gathered helped inform two pieces of bipartisan 
legislation that I introduced this Congress--the Filter Bubble 
Transparency Act and the Platform Accountability and Consumer 
Transparency Act, or the PACT Act. Both of these bills would increase 
transparency around the content-moderation process so that users have a 
better sense of how the information presented to them is being 
filtered. The Filter Bubble Transparency Act and the PACT Act go a long 
way toward making social media and other sites more accountable to 
consumers, and I will continue to work to advance these legislative 
efforts here in the Senate.
  I am grateful to have had the opportunity to chair this subcommittee 
over the past Congress and for the opportunity it has given me to work 
on the important issues and the legislation that I have mentioned. I 
want to thank the subcommittee's ranking member, Senator Schatz, for 
all the work he has done to make our committee so effective. I look 
forward to continuing to work with all my subcommittee colleagues to 
advance the 5G revolution, address the challenges presented by the 
internet age, and to make life better for the American people.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sasse). The Senator from Oregon.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 2828

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, in a moment, I am going to make a unanimous 
consent request on a piece of legislation on which my Eastern Oregon 
constituents have done an extraordinary job with respect to building a 
coalition that brings people together on a contentious issue. It 
deserves enormous credit, and I will describe their efforts here 
shortly.
  I also want to thank, as we begin, Senator Barrasso. Senator Barrasso 
will be taking on a new role in January on the Senate Committee on 
Energy and Natural Resources. He and I have worked together often, and 
I have appreciated his talking with me on this matter as he begins to 
look to his new duties in January.
  Mr. President, as in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent 
that the Energy and Natural Resources Committee be discharged from 
further consideration of S. 2828, the Malheur Community Empowerment for 
the Owyhee Act, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; 
further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed; and 
that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the 
table with no intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I do 
appreciate the work the Senator from Oregon has done on this public 
lands bill. I know the amount of effort that has gone into this 
legislation is significant. Locally driven public lands bills take an 
incredible amount of time to get right.
  This legislation has gone through intensive local stakeholder 
involvement, very similar to what we have done in Wyoming with the 
Wyoming Public Lands Initiative in my home State. The Wyoming Public 
Lands Initiative was spearheaded by our Wyoming County Commissioners 
Association. This initiative was started in order to resolve, through 
local negotiations, the status of so-called ``temporary'' wilderness 
study areas in Wyoming that have now, seemingly, become permanent.
  I recognize and understand that public lands negotiations often 
result in compromise. This give-and-take is a good thing, for it lets 
people closest to the issue have a significant voice. So I appreciate 
the efforts the stakeholders on the ground in Oregon have made to get 
this bill to where it is today. However, I believe additional work is 
still needed.
  I would let my friend from Oregon know that I will work with him and 
any other Senators with public lands issues before the Committee on 
Energy and Natural Resources. We may not always agree on a given 
outcome, but I am committed to having those discussions with Members of 
this body.
  For this reason, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I know my colleague does have other 
business that he has to get to, but before he attends to that, I just 
want to thank him for spending time with me already on this issue. I am 
going to outline the extraordinary effort that was made by my 
constituents.
  I think we all know--and I am going to discuss it--that in the West, 
very often, citizens feel nobody is listening to them, that nobody 
cares about them. The Senator and I have talked about this. This is 
kind of a question of, How do you empower them with a framework that 
can help them but also serve as a model for the country?
  So a big thanks to my colleague, and I am looking forward to working 
with him on this and other matters next year.
  What Senator Barrasso and I are discussing is the Malheur 
Community Empowerment for the Owyhee Act, known in our part of the 
county as the Malheur CEO Act. The bill has been in the works since 
late 2018. Back then, when a group of ranchers and business people who 
live in Malheur County, OR, came to see me, they came to talk about 
this incredible part of Oregon they call home. It is wide open country, 
and not many people live there, but those who do want to make sure they 
have a say in how it is going to be preserved and managed for the 
future.

  When I say this bill has been in the works since 2018, that is not 
the whole story, because the fact is that the groundwork for this bill 
has been in the making for decades, and it is only recently that an 
incredible coalition of Oregonians from across the political spectrum 
has come together to make it possible for us to propose this 
legislation.
  As I touched on with Senator Barrasso, in rural areas of the West, 
like Malheur County, there is often a feeling that people from 
thousands of miles away, particularly in DC, think that they somehow 
know better than rural citizens about what is good for those rural 
communities. I guess I would sum it up as: In rural areas, there is the 
sense that somehow, often, elites just look down on them; that nobody 
is listening; that people in power

[[Page S7515]]

consider them kind of simple cowboys who care little about saving land, 
air, and water.
  Now, I have townhall meetings in every county in Oregon. I had 970 of 
them until earlier this spring when we couldn't do them in person due 
to the pandemic. So we started doing them virtually. I know from all of 
those townhall meetings that constituents in Eastern Oregon are 
actually working every day to try to propose commonsense, practical 
policies to preserve special places for their kids and their grandkids. 
They know that they are working for all Americans because all Americans 
own public lands. Eastern Oregonians believe--and I think it is a very 
powerful point--that nobody cares more about protecting Oregon's 
natural treasures than those who live every day in those communities 
and are always thinking about what the future is for their kids and 
their grandkids.
  I will repeat that.
  Folks in rural Oregon know that the land is public land, that it 
belongs to all Americans, and they know that their communities' futures 
depend on keeping the lands healthy and usable. The ranchers of Malheur 
County want to be active participants in improving and keeping the 
ecological health of our public lands, and with this legislation that 
we are discussing today, they will have a real shot at doing just that.
  The fact is that, in some parts of the West, there have been bad 
actors who have abused the land for their own gain and flouted the law 
in a dangerous way. For example, in 2016, a heavily armed group of 
extremists that was not from Oregon, led by members of the Bundy 
family, stormed the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and occupied it 
for weeks. There was a standoff that people all over the country saw, 
between them and Federal, State, and local law enforcement. There was 
one death. Further south, in Nevada, the Bundys have not only stolen 
millions of dollars' worth of grazing fees from the American people, 
they also basically pushed aside basic environmental standards laid out 
by the Taylor Grazing Act, leading to degraded landscapes.
  Now, in Malheur County, just a few hours of wide open spaces east of 
the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge that the extremists took over, our 
ranchers and our small business people, to their great credit, said: We 
are going to take a different path, a better path. In Malheur County, 
you don't have the Bundys breaking the law. Our Malheur County ranchers 
are committed to being better and doing better, but that doesn't mean 
they aren't skeptical of people coming in and changing the rules when 
it comes to public lands surrounding their communities.
  So, in 2018, the Owyhee Basin Stewardship Coalition from Malheur 
County came to Washington to meet with me. Senator Barrasso will be 
interested in this. This group of ranchers and small business people 
came to me with a very improbable request for a Democratic U.S. 
Senator: Would I be willing to work with them to pass land management 
legislation that could serve as an alternative to a designation as a 
national monument?
  I thought this would be the point my colleagues would be interested 
in: I asked one member of the group if they had come to me because they 
thought I might take leave of my senses and say yes to their request. 
When I asked them, the person who was looking at me said: Yes, that is 
what we thought, Ron.
  Looming over the discussion was the history of this wonderful part of 
Eastern Oregon. I am not going to take my colleagues through a long 
discussion of the history of the Taylor Grazing Act, as it goes all the 
way back to 1932. So I will just start with the fact that in this area, 
Malheur County makes up most of the Vale District of the Bureau of Land 
Management, which, of course, is part of the Department of the 
Interior. The Vale District was the poster child for ``scientific 
grazing management'' in the 1960s and early 1970s under the Taylor 
Grazing Act. Did it live up to its potential? I would say it didn't 
because its efforts really were not adequately funded, and it lacked 
the consistent monitoring or the adaptive management needed to make it 
work on the ground, and that raises the question: What results are 
really at issue?
  The Taylor Grazing Act is about turning cattle out onto public lands 
and attempting to assure they don't destroy the land, but where is the 
act when it comes to fighting invasive weeds and actually improving 
soil health and responding to climate change and the effects of 
rangeland fires? In looking at what happened over the decades--the 
1930s, the 1960s, the 1970s--this bill says we are going to answer 
those questions for 2020.
  The Owyhee Basin Stewardship Coalition from Malheur County wanted to 
work together. I was glad that they came with their improbable request. 
I said we have got one chance here on our watch to bring people 
together, to come up with a sensible proposal. And when they indicated 
they wanted to work with me, I basically said: How could I refuse?
  Knowing the violence that can erupt in the West when people become 
closed off, when people just refuse to talk, that is when you have a 
prescription for trouble. As long as we are talking, as long as we are 
coming together, as long as we are sitting with each other and maybe 
just having a coffee, a tuna fish sandwich, you have an opportunity to 
come up with solutions. That is why I agreed to this.
  I agreed, in effect, to try to match the courage of these ranchers 
and business people in coming forward, and I said: If they are going to 
be willing to think through how to do this, I am going to join them.
  Now, the other area I want to touch on is--I said at the get-go and I 
think this has implications for dealing with public lands in the West. 
I said that there has got to be three requirements to help us all 
protect the land and preserve the ranching way of life.
  First, we would have to bring everybody to the table--
environmentalists, ranchers, local folks, and we would have to bring 
some of the folks from the more metropolitan area as well. That is 
because, in effect, when I said that, they said: OK. You know your way 
around legislation. We will try to find common ground.
  And there is common ground on the key question. In every nook and 
cranny of Oregon, there are people who care about our natural treasures 
in the Owyhee Canyonlands. Malheur County may keep its clock on Idaho 
time, but it is enormously loved all across our State. In my view, that 
alone ought to be a reason, after decades and decades of differences 
with respect to how to manage these treasures, that alone is a reason 
to work together.
  The second rule of our discussions was all about we weren't going to 
litigate this with the press and outside groups every time somebody had 
a little question, any kind of a dispute. So, in effect, we had set it 
up so that other groups, environmental and ranchers, there was going to 
be a lot of opportunity for folks to have their say.
  And the third rule was that there would be an understanding that we 
would respect our environmental laws. That was also very pivotal. So, 
in March of 2019, we got our group together in the conference room at 
the National Guard Armory in Ontario, OR, and those were the things 
that we wanted to start with that we thought gave us a chance to build 
this coalition that could lead to passing legislation to manage these 
treasures. So we got ranchers, environmentalists, local businesses, and 
we meet, essentially, every other Monday for months and months.
  I also want to thank the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish 
and Wildlife Service, Oregon State parks, fish and wildlife management 
agencies, local Tribe representatives, all of whom put in enormous 
amounts of time offering information, expertise, and good will. I met 
with local county officials, as well, relearning their thoughts with 
respect to roads and water infrastructure and their most important 
local economic needs. So that is what really led to this legislation.
  Finally, what we said is that we have to make sure that people have 
an opportunity to also talk, sort of, a little bit offline. So after 
these sessions, we always found a way to make it to a gathering place 
somewhere where people could just have a soda, perhaps something a 
little bit stronger, and we could just take the time informally to talk 
about what we thought the future was for this incredible part of the 
world.

[[Page S7516]]

  Now, in closing up, I want to mention that I think land designation 
discussions pit people against one another in the West if you do it the 
traditional sort of way. We needed some unity if we were going to come 
together on a bill. So that is why we wanted to make sure everybody had 
a shared understanding of how this would be addressed.
  I particularly want at this time to commend Sarah Bittleman, who is 
sitting here with me, who, month after month after month, call after 
call after call, email after email after email, always tried to keep 
this on focus.
  I also want to mention at this time our inspiration was the late Mary 
Gautreaux, who was in our office for over two decades. She was the 
spirit of this effort. She lived in Portland. Yet she was beloved--
beloved--by the people of rural Oregon, the people of Malheur County. 
So with Sarah and Mary as the energy behind this, we really set out to 
build this coalition, which has gotten us to this point. It was a 
coalition driven on the fact that people would take the time to do this 
right.
  When I brought it to the attention of Senator Barrasso, who obviously 
will play a key role in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee next 
year, the first thing he wanted to hear about was the kind of 
groundwork that had been laid for local input, for local stakeholders. 
I described to him much of what we have been talking about.

  So I introduced the Malheur CEO Act in November of 2019. It was part 
of a legislative hearing in 2020, and let me just very quickly describe 
a couple of elements of it. It works this way: It includes range land 
management enhancements, loop roads to focus tourist travel and build 
the local economy, and about a million acres of wilderness designation. 
It also moves around a million acres of land now being studied into 
multiple-use management.
  The bill implements a few key strategies: a plan to let ranchers do 
range improvements, irrigation systems, removing water-sucking juniper, 
and replacing invasive weeds with native grasses and improve the 
ecological health of the range land.
  So here are the pictures to my left. The first is a picture of 
rangeland being overrun by weeds. The second shows rangeland in a 
native, healthy condition.
  Now, the bill also establishes a Malheur Community Empowerment for 
the Owyhee advisory group so on an ongoing basis it can advise BLM on 
land management. And the bill also provides substantial funding for the 
BLM so it can finish environmental soil surveys and carry out 
environmental policies associated with this bill and monitor the 
implementation of the bill.
  The bill includes funding for the study and designation of three loop 
roads designed to improve the visitor experience, keep visitors out of 
trouble, and drive more traffic to the small retail businesses, which I 
think we all understand desperately--desperately--need our attention.
  I also want to thank at this point, while I am on floor, Senator 
Grassley. He and I have led the bipartisan effort on the Finance 
Committee.
  I see Senator Manchin here. He knows how strongly we feel about 
getting the small businesses the deductibility associated with these 
PPP loans.
  I bring this up only by way of saying that we are grateful to Senator 
Grassley for working with me. He is the chair of the Finance Committee. 
I am the ranking Democrat, but Senator Manchin and others deserve 
credit for helping us get that proposal moving, and we made it clear we 
have to get that in before we go home. Part of it is our concern for 
the small retail businesses that we saw in the Owyhee.
  Finally, the bill provides for amenities at the Owyhee Reservoir with 
a marina. That is also good for the local economy. Recreation is a big 
economic engine in our part of the world.
  And the last point I will just mention is the bill is a compromise. 
Everybody had to make some concessions.
  There are folks who feel that the environmental groups got too much 
here. There are folks who feel the ranchers and the small business 
people got too much. But the fact is, all sides said: We have some core 
values and some core priorities. Let's see if we can address the core 
values and core priorities on both sides of this so that this 
spectacular portion of Eastern Oregon could be protected and preserved 
and we could respect and empower the people who call it home and work 
so hard to make a living there.
  Finally, I ask unanimous consent to put into the Record the names of 
all the people who worked so hard on this effort--our Owyhee Basin 
Stewardship Coalition. They are ranchers; there are folks on various 
kinds of environmental organizations and groups; and they deserve 
incredible credit for being willing to put in the time and effort on 
something that seemed so improbable.
  Finally, I want to thank my partner here in the Senate, Senator 
Merkley. He has been terrific as we worked on this. We both share a 
love of the land in Eastern Oregon.
  Now it is up to the U.S. Senate to get this passed. It isn't going to 
happen today, unfortunately, but I want the Senate to know I am going 
to stay at it until this gets done. I think it will be of enormous 
benefit for rural Oregon. I think it will be of enormous benefit for 
our State, and I think it will be a model for how our country brings 
people together, particularly as it relates to issues where we have 
been polarized in the past
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

       The Owyhee Basin Stewardship Coalition members who sat 
     through most of the meetings:
       Steve Russell, chair/rancher
       Andy Bentz, former sheriff and Cliff Bentz's brother
       Linda Bentz, rancher and Cliff and Andy's sister-in-law
       Elias Eiguren, rancher
       Mark Mackenzie, rancher
       Jaime Yturriondobeitia, rancher
       Paulette Pyle, local consultant and former advocate
       And members of the environmental community who also sat 
     through all or most of the meetings that lead to S. 2828
       Tim Davis, Friends of the Owyhee
       Ryan Houston and Corie Harlan, Oregon Natural Desert 
     Association
       David Moryc, American Rivers
       Nicole Cordan, Pew Charitable Trust
       Liz Sullivan, Northwest Sports Fishermen
       With special thanks to Brent Grasty and Don Gonzalez at the 
     Bureau of Land Management without whose expertise many of our 
     discussions would have been a lot shorter.
  Mr. WYDEN. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I would like permission to basically be 
able to complete my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.