WASHINGTON — The 118th Congress will face some long-standing policy challenges as well as a few new ones but may not get to the finish line on any of them — even the federal data privacy bill that has bipartisan backing in both chambers.
Lawmakers have been debating antitrust legislation aimed at the tech industry, social media content moderation policies and the online spread of disinformation for the last two Congresses but have yet to send any legislation to the president’s desk. With Republicans taking the House majority, the hill may become steeper.
“We are closer with Republicans and Democrats, but we are again in this space where some devil-is-in-the-details are still being worked out,” said Nicol Turner Lee, director of the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution, about data privacy legislation. “My hope is that this is not one of those issues where we have to start from scratch.”
