[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 23 (Monday, February 8, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S574-S576]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTION

      By Mrs. FEINSTEIN (for herself and Mrs. Capito):
  S. 273. A bill to improve the management of driftnet fishing; to the 
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce the 
``Driftnet Modernization and Bycatch Reduction Act.'' I thank Senator 
Capito for her cosponsorship as well as continued partnership on this 
important legislation.
  This bipartisan bill passed the Senate last Congress by unanimous 
consent and then passed the House of Representatives in December 2020. 
Unfortunately, then President Trump chose to veto the bill based on 
misguided policy and inaccurate data.
  I urge my colleagues to once again support this bill, which solely 
affects California fishery management, but has far-reaching beneficial 
impacts for a wide range of marine animals, including endangered 
species. This legislation modernizes a commercial fishery to promote 
sustainable fishery management and creates a win-win for conservation 
goals and commercial fishing profitability.


                               The Issue

  Large mesh drift gillnets, as defined in this legislation, have a 
mesh hole size of 14 inches or greater and are used to target swordfish 
and thresher shark off the California coast. However, alarmingly, these 
nets utilized by this one fishery in Federal waters, according to NOAA, 
are responsible for 90% of porpoise and dolphin deaths in all west 
coast fisheries combined.
  These substantially sized nets are between 1 and 1.5 miles long and 
extend more than 100 feet below the ocean's surface. This creates a 
``net wall'' that ensnares approximately 60 non-target species, known 
as bycatch, leading to severe harm or drowning of endangered marine 
turtles, whales, dolphin, and numerous fish species.
  In addition to being banned everywhere else in the United States and 
in

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some international waters, these specific nets were also banned in 
California's state waters in 2018. This bill would bring much needed 
parity to state and federal laws on the west coast.
  After the State ban, a large majority of the remaining commercial 
fishery using drift gillnet gear voluntarily turned in their permits to 
the State and received compensation to transition to alternative, 
sustainable gear, such as deep set buoy gear.
  This bill is critically needed to complete the transition of the 
fishery and provide Federal partnership to the successful State 
program. The Federal waters off the California coast are the last place 
in the United States where these dangerous nets are still used.


                        How our bill would help

  This bill is identical to the legislation that passed in the 116th 
Congress. It provides a common-sense solution by phasing out drift 
gillnets over a five-year period from enactment in favor of more 
sustainable alternatives, such as deep-set buoy gear. This sustainable 
gear has already been proven to yield higher market prices for 
fishermen and considerably reduces the amount of bycatch.
  In fact, 2020 landings data from the PacFIN database for swordfish 
shows that drift gillnet gear caught only 19.8 metric tons of swordfish 
at an average of $3.62 per pound yielding a total of $157,728. In the 
same fishing season, deep set buoy gear caught 79.4 metric tons of 
swordfish at an average of $5.88 per pound for a total value of 
$1,028,932. Important to note, deep set buoy gear also had an extremely 
low bycatch rate--less than 2 percent--illustrating how this fishery 
can be both more sustainable and profitable.
  The transition program includes a grant authorization for Federal 
funding to match State funds for local fishermen to exchange their 
current permits and purchase new, sustainable gear.
  This bill has broad support at the State and Federal level, as well 
as national groups such as American Sportfishing Association and 
Oceana.
  In addition, this bill includes a provision important to the Pacific 
halibut fishery in Alaska that I have worked with Senator Sullivan and 
the Commerce Committee to include.
  The provision would enable the Secretary of Commerce to approve 
certain charter vessel operators who guide recreational anglers and 
harvest Pacific halibut in certain federal waters to collect fees that 
would fund the Recreational Quota Entity Program for the purposes of 
halibut conservation and research.
  I look forward to working with my colleagues to once again pass the 
``Driftnet Modernization and Bycatch Reduction Act'', and I urge them 
to support the swift passage of this bipartisan bill.
  Thank you once again to Senator Capito and to Commerce Committee 
leadership, Senator Cantwell and Senator Wicker for their assistance on 
this important legislation.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the Floor.
                                 ______
                                 
      By Mr. REED (for himself, Mr. Burr, Ms. Smith, and Mr. Scott of 
        South Carolina):
  S. 288. A bill to reauthorize the Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research 
Act of 2005, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Health, 
Education, Labor, and Pensions.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, today I am pleased to introduce the Timely 
Reauthorization of Necessary Stem Cell Programs Lends Access to Needed 
Therapies (TRANSPLANT) Act of 2021 with Senators Richard Burr, Tina 
Smith, and Tim Scott. This bill offers promise to the tens of thousands 
of individuals diagnosed with leukemia and lymphomas, sickle cell 
anemia, and rare genetic blood disorders.
  Our bipartisan legislation renews the C. W. Bill Young Cell 
Transplantation Program and the National Cord Blood Inventory (NCBI), 
the only programs in the Country that maintain donor registries for 
individuals in need of a bone marrow and umbilical cord blood 
transplantation. Over twenty-two million Americans are registered bone 
marrow donors resulting in nearly 6,500 transplants just last year. In 
the years since NCBI was established, more than 300,000 cord blood 
units have been collected, facilitating more than 100,000 blood stem 
cell transplants. The TRANSPLANT Act would reaffirm the commitment to 
these life-saving programs, which have been helping to connect 
individuals in need of bone marrow or umbilical cord blood transplants 
with donors for more than two decades.
  The public registries, made up of donors from all over the country, 
have been a true lifeline for the Americans who have found an unrelated 
match. By strengthening and enhancing the important programs operating 
these registries, many more Americans will be afforded the opportunity 
to find a match if they are ever in need. I look forward to swift 
consideration of this legislation in the Senate Health, Education, 
Labor, and Pensions Committee and working toward passage in the full 
Senate.
                                 ______
                                 
      By Mr. WARNER (for himself, Ms. Hirono, Ms. Klobuchar, and Mr. 
        Kaine):
  S. 299. A bill to amend section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934 
to reaffirm civil rights, victims' rights, and consumer protections; to 
the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
  Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Safeguarding 
Against Fraud, Exploitation, Threats, Extremism and Consumer Harms Act, 
also known as the SAFE TECH Act. I thank my colleagues, Senator Warner 
and Senator Klobuchar, for working with me on this important piece of 
legislation, which fulfills the promise of Section 230 of the 
Communications Decency Act by forcing internet companies to finally 
address the serious harms their platforms cause--harms like civil 
rights and human rights violations, stalking and harassment, and 
wrongful death.
  Section 230--often called the law that created the internet--was 
passed in 1996. For some context, in 1996, Google was two years from 
being founded. Mark Zuckerberg was in middle school. And, the internet 
effectively shut down for nineteen hours when a technical glitch took 
American Online offline.
  The law was passed with a noble goal in mind: to encourage operators 
of then-nascent internet message boards to act as ``Good Samaritans'' 
and voluntarily police illegal and harmful content posted by third 
parties. Section 230 accomplished this goal by declaring that ``[n]o 
provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as 
the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another 
information content provider.'' These twenty-six words have effectively 
shielded internet platforms from liability for any harm caused by 
content posted by third parties for the past twenty-five years.
  Unfortunately, whatever incentive Section 230 was meant to provide to 
encourage internet platforms to police content has proven to be no 
incentive at all. The statute's broad immunity applies whether a 
platform carefully reviews each piece of content posted by a user or 
performs no content moderation whatsoever. It immunizes platforms that 
have actual knowledge illegal content has been posted. It even applies 
if the platform itself encouraged the user to post the content. The 
result has been internet platforms large and small turning a blind eye 
to the real-world harms they cause.
  Let me tell you about a few of those real-world harms.
  Over the course of five months in late 2016 and early 2017, Matthew 
Herrick was harassed and physically assaulted by men directed to his 
home and office by the gay dating app Grindr. These men--over 1,100 in 
total--were responding to a fake profile created by Mr. Herrick's ex-
boyfriend. Grindr was on notice of both the fake profile and its 
harmful effects. Mr. Herrick and his friends filed approximately fifty 
reports with the company reporting the problem and seeking help. But 
the company did nothing while Mr. Herrick suffered.
  On October 21, 2012, Radcliffe Haughton walked into a Wisconsin spa 
and shot and killed three women, including his estranged wife, and 
wounded four others before turning the gun on himself. He had purchased 
the gun the prior day from a private seller he found on the online gun 
marketplace Armslist.com. He was able to purchase the gun even though 
his wife had recently obtained a domestic abuse restraining order that 
specifically prohibited Mr. Haughton from purchasing

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a gun. For all intents and purposes, Armslist was designed to 
facilitate such illegal sales. It precluded users from flagging illegal 
sales; it allowed people to anonymously purchase guns without a 
background check; and it enabled prohibited purchasers to search only 
for sellers that did not check criminal backgrounds or keep records. 
Mr. Haughton took advantage of these features and, as a result, three 
people are dead.
  On August 25, 2020, 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed two 
people and injured a third on the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin during 
a protest of the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Mr. Rittenhouse was 
one of many armed, right-wing counter-protesters encouraged to travel 
to Kenosha by a Facebook page run by a group called ``Kenosha Guard'' 
that asked if any followers would be willing to ``take up arms and 
defend [the city] from the evil thugs.'' Despite being flagged to 
Facebook at least 455 times as a call to violence, the company left the 
page up.
  In none of these cases did Grindr, Armslist, and Facebook act like 
``Good Samaritans.'' They did not voluntarily police the content on 
their platforms. Instead, they either actively encouraged or turned a 
blind eye to dangerous and illegal content knowing full well Section 
230 immunized them for any harm their platforms caused. Any attempt by 
victims to hold the platforms accountable for their roles would be 
blocked by Section 230.
  Under the SAFE TECH Act, this would no longer be the case. This bill 
would ensure that internet companies either address the serious 
problems they are causing or face potential liability. It does so by 
creating targeted exceptions to Section 230's broad immunity, including 
exceptions for advertisements and other paid content; claims for 
injunctive relief; civil rights, stalking, and harassment laws; 
wrongful death actions; and suits under the Alien Tort Claims Act.
  Introducing these exceptions to Section 230 does not guarantee that 
platforms will be held liable in all--or even most--cases where they 
cause real-world harm. But it will give victims the opportunity to make 
their case. By doing so, the SAFE TECH Act will punish those bad actors 
who are actively encouraging or turning a blind eye to dangerous and 
illegal content, while allowing true ``Good Samaritans'' to flourish 
online. That was the promise of Section 230. After twenty-five years, 
it's about time we realize that promise.
  I therefore encourage my colleagues to support the SAFE TECH Act.

                          ____________________