[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 55 (Tuesday, March 29, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1828-S1829]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                     Nomination of Alvaro M. Bedoya

  Mr. WICKER. Madam President, I rise this evening to urge my 
colleagues to oppose the nomination of Alvaro Bedoya to be a 
Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission.
  Recently, the Commerce Committee deadlocked on this nomination, with 
all Republican members voting no and all Democratic members voting yes. 
So it will take a discharge petition here on the Senate floor to move 
Mr. Bedoya's nomination further. If our Democratic colleagues are 
successful, Mr. Bedoya will become the fifth tie-breaking Commissioner 
of the FTC.
  Let me just observe, as someone who has been on the Commerce 
Committee for years and years here in the U.S. Senate, that the Federal 
Trade Commission, which is where Mr. Bedoya would become a member, has 
always approached issues and addressed the public in a spirit of 
bipartisanship.
  Unlike with the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC, where we 
are used to the vote being 2 to 3, in a very partisan manner--that is 
the FCC for you--we haven't had that, over time, with the Federal Trade 
Commission. The Federal Trade Commission has had a tradition of 
bipartisanship. They have had a tradition of issuing policy statements 
with all five of them participating and issuing statements to the 
Commerce Committee, before testimony, with the one statement speaking 
for the entire Federal Trade Commission.
  Mr. Bedoya's records show that he would bring that sort of 
partisanship that we have had at the FCC to the Federal Trade 
Commission, and I hope we can avoid that. As a matter of fact, Mr. 
Bedoya has publicly supported eliminating the longstanding bipartisan 
policy statements, and he has advocated for excluding minority party 
Commissioners from Agency investigations. This would be a troubling 
step for a Commission that has been bipartisan.
  Mr. Bedoya has a long history of divisive social media statements. 
For example, he called for the elimination of the U.S. Immigration and 
Customs Enforcement Agency. He has called for the elimination of ICE. 
That is how extreme and out in left field this nominee, Alvaro Bedoya, 
is. He has called on local law enforcement agencies not to cooperate 
with ICE. So, if you are a local police department, just don't 
cooperate with the Federal Agency in charge of immigration and customs 
enforcement. He has accused Cabinet-level Departments of committing 
human rights abuses. He has even demanded that several of our 
colleagues here in the U.S. Senate resign.
  He is a hothead, plainly said--more appropriate for a talk radio host 
of the far left rather than the fifth vote on the Federal Trade 
Commission.
  Additionally, as the Judiciary Committee continues to consider a 
Supreme Court nomination, I think it is instructive to recall that, in 
the fall of 2020, this nominee, Mr. Bedoya, urged Senate Democrats to 
boycott the Judiciary Committee's hearings on the nomination of Amy 
Coney Barrett to serve on the Supreme Court.

  Now, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would be outraged 
if Republican members of the Judiciary Committee actually refused to 
attend the committee's hearings which occurred last week. This is 
exactly what Mr. Bedoya, the FTC nominee, called on the Democrats to do 
just 18 months ago. Clearly, he is out of the mainstream.
  This is not the temperament we need to send to the FTC, particularly 
at a time when the Agency's current leadership has pursued a more 
partisan agenda as of late. We need to get away from that trend.
  Then, beyond temperament, Mr. Bedoya has demonstrated a lack of 
experience and a lack of knowledge on the major policy areas that he 
would be responsible for regulating as an FTC Commissioner. Although 
the FTC is the Nation's premier regulator of consumer privacy, Mr. 
Bedoya's experience on the topic of privacy comes from his time on the 
staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee. There, he largely dealt with 
issues of government surveillance, which falls outside the FTC's 
jurisdiction. So even the limited experience Mr. Bedoya has gives him 
no help in dealing with Federal Trade Commission issues.
  Through the Commerce Committee's vetting process, Mr. Bedoya has also 
shown a limited knowledge of the competition and antitrust issues that 
are at the heart of today's major policy debates at the FTC.
  I don't want the FTC to lack a tie-breaking vote forever--that is not 
the reason every Republican on the Commerce Committee voted no--but I 
do want the Agency to be able to tackle these important issues: to rein 
in Big Tech's dominance of so many marketplaces; to support a 21st 
century economy that spurs innovation; and to protect consumers from 
fraud and other unfair and deceptive business practices. I want the FTC 
to return to its traditional standing as an Agency driven by 
bipartisanship and as an Agency that can be counted on to use its broad 
authority with a steady hand and a measured approach.
  I do not believe Mr. Bedoya is the right person to do this. I do not 
believe someone with his temperament and lack of experience and lack of 
knowledge about the issues will be able to put the Federal Trade 
Commission back on track.
  For those reasons, I urge my colleagues to support any effort to 
discharge Mr. Bedoya's nomination from the Commerce Committee to the 
Senate floor.

[[Page S1829]]

  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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