Democrats in Congress on Thursday renewed a push to hold tech companies accountable for bias in their algorithms. Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Cory Booker (D-NJ), along with House representative Yvette Clarke (D-NY) introduced an updated version of a bill that would require audits of AI systems used in areas such as finance, healthcare, housing, education and more. First introduced by Wyden in 2019, the Algorithmic Accountability Act has never passed the committee level in either the House or Senate.

“If someone decides not to rent you a house because of the color of your skin, that’s flat-out illegal discrimination. Using a flawed algorithm or software that results in discrimination and bias is just as bad. Our bill will pull back the curtain on the secret algorithms that can decide whether Americans get to see a doctor, rent a house or get into a school,” said Wyden in a press release.

A wave of studies found evidence of racial and gender bias in AI tools and automated systems used in everything from approving mortgages and credit cards to prescribing pain medication. Civil rights groups in recent years have lobbied Congress to hold companies accountable for flawed and biased algorithms.

The bill would require companies to perform an audit of their AI systems and report their findings to the Federal Trade Commission. It would also require the FTC to force companies to make high-profile AI decision making public. Under the bill, the FTC would create a public database where consumers can review critical decisions that have been automated by companies.

The legislation would require companies that use AI tools in “critical decision making” to evaluate the outcomes of such tools and regularly report their findings to the FTC. According to an analysis of the bill released by Wyden’s office, this includes any decisions by businesses that are related to the “cost, terms, or availability of education and vocational training, employment, essential utilities, family planning, financial services, healthcare, housing or lodging, legal services, or any other service, program, or opportunity that has a comparably legal or similarly significant effect on a consumer’s life as determined by the Commission through rulemaking.”

The bill has been endorsed by a handful of civil liberties and digital rights groups, including EPIC, Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), Fight for the Future, and others. “Color Of Change commends Sens. Wyden and Booker and Rep. Clarke for advancing racial justice equities in tech regulation. We hope Congress will pass this instrumental legislation,” said Arisha Hatch, Vice President of Color Of Change, in a statement.

Both the House and Senate versions of the bill will next need to be reviewed and voted on by their relevant committees in Congress. The date for this vote has yet to be scheduled.

Engadget has reached out to the bill’s co-sponsors for further details on the legislation and its next steps in Congress, and will update when we hear back.

The Biden administration is determined to eliminate combustion engine vehicles from federal fleets, and it's not thrilled that one agency might be holding it back. According to The Washington Post, the Environmental Protection Agency and White House Council on Environmental Quality have sent letters to the US Postal Service urging it to rethink a proposal to mostly buy gas-powered next-gen delivery trucks in a project worth up to $11.3 billion. The current strategy is a "lost opportunity" to more drastically reduce the carbon footprint of one of the world's largest government fleets, EPA associate policy administrator Vicki Arroyo wrote.

Only 10 percent of the USPS' new trucks would be electric under the existing proposal, and the overall effort would only improve the fleet's fuel economy by 0.4MPG. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy previously claimed the Postal Service couldn't afford more electric mail vehicles, and has argued his agency needs to focus on basic infrastructure improvements over technology. The USPS is required by law to be self-sufficient, and can't simply request government funds.

There may be an uphill battle to make any changes. DeJoy has staunchly refused to alter the purchasing plan, and the USPS rejected California officials' January 28th request for a public hearing on the plans. The service also largely ignored EPA advice when it created the analysis guiding its plan. The environmental regulator accused the USPS of using "biased" estimates that preferred gas-based trucks. The mail institution reportedly assumed battery and gas prices would remain static even decades later, and that the existing charging infrastructure wouldn't grow. It further overestimated the emissions from plug-in vehicles, according to the EPA.

The Postal Service might be forced to change regardless. The EPA has the option of referring its disagreements to the White House Council on Environmental Quality, which can mediate disputes like this. The letters gave the USPS a last chance to voluntarily rethink its proposal before the Council stepped in, sources for The Post claimed. Environmental groups are also likely to sue if the gas-centric plan moves ahead, and the law firm Earthjustice told The Post the USPS might lose when its proposal often lacks supporting evidence. You may well see a transition toward mail-carrying EVs, even if the transition is particularly messy.

The EARN IT Act is a piece of legislation, first introduced in 2020 by Republican Senator Lindsay Graham and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal. Its sponsors, of which there are many, say that the bill will tackle the proliferation of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) posted online. Its critics say that the bill uses an emotive subject as cover to force tech companies to further erode online privacy protections and curtail freedom of speech. Much like FOSTA/SESTA before it, the bill’s key target is further weakening the legal protections of Section 230 Communications Decency Act, better known as the “26 words that created the internet.”

Originally tabled March 5th, 2020, the bill received plenty of bipartisan support in the Senate and was passed to committee soon after. It did not, however, receive a full vote at the time, likely due to the fact that COVID-19 massively disrupted the legislative process. It has now been reintroduced in largely the same form as before, and is being discussed by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, February 3rd, 2022.

Broadly speaking, the bill seeks to launch a new national commission, led by a committee of senior law enforcement officials. This body would develop a series of so-called best practices to prevent online platforms distributing CSAM. Any platform that did not adopt these best practices would subsequently lose their immunity provided to them by Section 230. It also places a lot of power to regulate internet providers directly in the hands of state legislatures.

One of the bill’s more troubling moves is to outsource the key decision-making power to a politically-chosen body. The committee would involve the Attorney General, Secretary of Homeland Security and appointees with a background in law enforcement. There is an understandable concern that such a group would be unrepresentative in terms of the broader debate around this issue, and unaccountable for the decisions that it reaches.

This lack of accountability and the fact that the bill repeats many of the same mistakes that marked the passage of FOSTA/SESTA, advocacy groups are worried. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), for instance, believe that the law’s broad scope could be used to erode basic online freedoms at the whims of politicians. At the time the bill was initially introduced, the Attorney General was William Barr, a prominent critic of encryption. Barr said, many times, that tech companies “can” and “must” put back doors into their products. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said that such a move would enable “law enforcement agencies, from the FBI down to the local police, to scan every message sent online.” The fact that the new text explicitly nods that the use of encryption could be a reason to lose liability protection makes this even more troubling. And even if that clause is watered-down, the broad-brush power handed to the committee overall means it just takes a change in leadership and encryption is gone for good.

Part of the broader context around Section 230 is the myth, intentionally propagated by some lawmakers and journalists, that online platforms are censoring conservative voices. Time and again, prominent figures on the right decry outfits like Facebook when it takes down content that violates its terms of service. They say that it’s partisan censorship, despite the fact that Facebook has in fact bent overbackwards to accommodate and keep prominent right-wing figures on its site. The attacks on S230 are to be seen as both a political cudgel to ensure major platforms continue to carve out exceptions for prominent Republicans, and as a way of censoring huge swathes of internet speech.

No discussion of Section 230 can exist without talking about the harms created by the passing of FOSTA/SESTA. That bill had a similar aim of weakening the protections of Section 230, passed under the aegis of preventing sex trafficking. Once signed into law in 2018, a number of websites dealing with sex, sex work and sexual education were forced offline. Democrats in 2019 were sufficiently concerned by the fallout from the bill that they unsuccessfully attempted to pass a bill that would study the impact of FOSTA/SESTA on vulnerable individuals.

Freedom Network, a body that works to prevent trafficking, and provide support to its victims, spoke out against EARN IT at the end of 2020. It, along with a number of other groups, backed a letter (.PDF) saying that the bill was flawed and wouldn’t succeed in its supposed aims. It said that the bill would repeat the mistakes of FOSTA/SESTA, explaining that “instead of narrowly targeting sex trafficking which used digital platforms, the law de-platformed and erased the existence of many, including sex workers, harm reduction workers and sex educators.” It added that the bill could cause disproportionate harm to LGBTQ communities who would be starved of vital educational material and access to a broader community.

Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, wrote to Graham and Dianne Feinstein in June 2020 to lodge its own opposition to the bill. It said that “the EARN IT Act not only jeopardizes privacy and threatens the right to free expression but also fails to effectively protect children from online exploitation.”

Since the bill has reemerged, these same criticisms have been leveled against it, given that little has changed about its construction. The Center for Democracy and Technology said on Tuesday that its changes “in some cases, makes things worse.” It remains to be seen, however, if these criticisms will get through to the politicians who will begin debating the bill in earnest later today.

The Federal Communications Commission could soon make it more difficult for telemarketers to leave ringless voicemails on your cellphone. On Wednesday, Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel shared a proposal that seeks to force callers to obtain your consent before they can leave a message directly in your voicemail box.

The proposal would effectively extend the protections of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act to cover ringless voicemails. The 1991 law prohibits telemarketers and other groups from using automated systems to make non-emergency calls to your mobile phone without first obtaining your consent. In March 2017, a company called All About the Message asked the FCC to rule that the TCPA did not cover ringless voicemails. Rosenworcel’s proposal would deny that petition.

“Ringless voicemail can be annoying, invasive and can lead to fraud like other robocalls—so it should face the same consumer protection rules,” said Rosenworcel. “No one wants to wade through voicemail spam, or miss important messages because their mailbox is full. This FCC action would continue to empower consumers to choose which parties they give permission to contact them.”

The FCC didn’t say when it plans to hold a full commission vote on the proposal. The agency’s next open meeting is scheduled for February 18th, but addressing ringless voicemails isn’t listed on the day’s agenda. There’s no guarantee the FCC will approve the proposal, but compared to a topic like net neutrality, combating spam callers is something most Americans want more action on from the government.

A federal appeals court voted unanimously on Friday to uphold California’s SB-822 net neutrality law, reports The Verge. One year after the Federal Communications Commission repealed net neutrality rules that applied nationwide, the state passed its own set of laws. Those rules barred internet service providers from blocking, as well as throttling select websites and services. However, California could not begin enforcing those laws due to two separate legal challenges.

The first came from the Department of Justice. Under former President Donald Trump, the agency sued the state, arguing its laws were pre-empted by the FCC’s repeal of the Obama-era Open Internet Order. In February 2021, the Justice Department dropped its complaint. Later that same month, a federal judge ruled in favor of the state in a separate lawsuit involving multiple telecom trade groups. This week’s ruling upholds that decision.

In its ruling, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said the lower court “correctly denied” the preliminary injunction brought against California by the telecom industry. It said the FCC “no longer has the authority” to regulate internet services in the way that it did when it previously classified them as telecommunications services. “The agency, therefore, cannot preempt state action, like SB-822, that protects net neutrality,” the court said.

The four trade groups behind the original lawsuit – the American Cable Association, CTIA, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association and USTelecom – said they were “disappointed” by the decision and that they plan to review their options. “Once again, a piecemeal approach to this issue is untenable and Congress should codify national rules for an open Internet once and for all,” the groups told CNBC.

After months of stalemate at the FCC, federal action on net neutrality could come soon. Next week, the Senate Commerce Committee will decide whether to advance Gigi Sohn’s nomination to a full vote of the Senate. President Biden picked Sohn to fill the final empty commissioner seat on the FCC. Her confirmation would give Democrats a three to two edge on the FCC, allowing it to advance the president’s telecom-related policies.

The pandemic pushed US lawmakers to provide provisions to expand medical coverage for telehealth in 2020, speeding up a process that would otherwise have taken years. Since then, there have been efforts to make the change permanent, through things like the Telehealth Expansion Act of 2021. But there is an interim period that could present some uncertainty over whether people can get crucial telehealth services while permanent legislation is drawn up. Today, a bipartisan group of 45 lawmakers, led by Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), said they're "calling for the extension of expanded coverage of telehealth services to be included in must-pass legislation in February."

The group published a letter addressing Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as well as their minority counterparts and notable signees include Senators Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). 

The letter states "While Congress prepares to enact permanent telehealth legislation, we urge you to include an extension of the pandemic telehealth authorities in must-pass government funding legislation in February." 

Currently, pandemic telehealth decision-makers have temporary authority, and that's tied to the COVID-19 public health emergency declaration. As stated in today's letter, the emergency declaration is renewed in three-month increments. "Without more definitive knowledge about the duration of the pandemic and Medicare’s long-term coverage of telehealth, many organizations have been hesitant to fully invest in telehealth."

In addition to providing more confidence to providers that investing in telehealth will be a sound long-term investment, adding an extension to telehealth coverage while making it permanent will also "reassure patients that their care will not end abruptly."

The lawmakers called for "An extension to maintain expanded coverage of Medicare telehealth services for a set period of time," which the letter said "would provide much-needed certainty to health care providers and patients." They believe an extension would also allow additional time for studies to be conducted on the impact of telehealth, which "could help inform Congress's next steps on permanent telehealth legislation and appropriate program integrity and beneficiary protections."

Therefore, the group is also asking to ensure that "an extension not include unnecessary statutory barriers in accessing telehealth services during this data collection and analysis period," which could prevent people from getting essential care.

A group of Democratic lawmakers led by Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachuttes has asked six crypto mining companies, including Riot Blockchain, to answer questions about the impact of their operations on the environment and cost of electricity in the US. In separate letters to the chief executives of each firm, the group asks the companies to detail how much electricity they consume, their scaling plans and any agreements they have in place with local utility companies. They have until February 10th to reply.

Lawmakers say they’re concerned about what a dramatic increase in domestic cryptocurrency mining has meant for the environment and consumers. Specifically, they cite a 2021 study from the University of California, Berkeley that estimated crypto mining in upstate New York raised annual electricity bills by approximately $165 million for small businesses and $79 million for consumers, “with little or no local economic benefit.” They also point to the fact that energy consumption related to Bitcoin mining tripled between 2019 and 2021.

“The extraordinarily high energy usage and carbon emissions associated with Bitcoin mining could undermine our hard work to tackle the climate crisis – not to mention the harmful impacts crypto mining has on local environments and electricity prices,” Senator Warren said. “We need more information on the operations of these crypto mining companies to understand the full scope of the consequences for our environment and local communities.”

The group stops short of suggesting regulatory action could be on the horizon for the industry, but clearly the effect of cryptocurrency on other parts of the economy is something lawmakers are thinking about. On January 20th, the House Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing titled “Cleaning up Cryptocurrency: The Energy Impacts of Blockchains.” What’s more, US lawmakers have taken a more board interest in cryptocurrencies in recent months. That was on display in December when the Senate held a hearing on Stablecoins.

The FCC's voluntary broadband labels might not be quite so voluntary in the future. The FCC has proposed rules requiring point-of-sale labels that clearly illustrate what you'll get when you sign up with an internet service provider. As before, the labels would include not only prices and speeds, but also data caps, "network management" policies like throttling and other details you'd likely appreciate.

Officials also want to know if the nutrition-style 2016 labels are enough to help customers make informed buying decisions. The Commission is likewise considering new guidance on where ISPs would display these labels.

The proposal comes in response to the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that President Biden signed into law in November. The law required broadband providers to make "consumer-friendly" labels, tasking the FCC with devising new rules within a year of the Act's passage.

The labels would theoretically spur competition by making it easier for customers to compare internet services and choose the one that offers the best value. However, they might only be of limited use. Americans are frequently stuck with broadband duopolies, and in some cases monopolies. While that's improving with the rise of wireless home internet and higher-quality satellite service, many customers won't have meaningful choices for a long time.

Back in 2020, California governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order that will ban the sales of new gasoline and diesel vehicles in the state by 2035. While California already represents half the EV market in the US, the state's officials know that they have to offer help and incentives to accelerate EV adoption and reach an all-electric future. They need to take steps so that removing gas vehicles from the market wouldn't hurt consumers. California committed $3.9 billion for its EV-related initiatives last year, and Newsom recently proposed the addition of $6.1 billion to the state's zero-emission vehicle package to bring the total to $10 billion. Now, the governor has detailed what he plans to do with the money.

First off, Newsom is hoping to make EVs more accessible by putting aside $256 million for low-income consumer EV purchases and spending $900 million on deploying affordable charging options to low-income neighborhoods. Another $935 million will also be spent to add 1,000 zero-emission short-haul trucks and 1,700 electric buses to the state's fleet. $1.5 billion will be used to electrify school buses, while $1.1 billion will be used to buy trucks, buses, off-road equipment and fueling infrastructure. California will spend $400 million on the electrification of ports and $419 million to support projects that increase access to zero-emission transportation in low-income communities, as well.

Alvaro Sanchez, Vice President of Policy at The Greenlining Institute non-profit org, said in a statement:

"To achieve California's climate goals we must focus on the needs of the most polluted and underserved neighborhoods. Governor Newsom’s ZEV investment proposal recognizes this reality. We're excited to work with the Governor and the Legislature to prove to the rest of the country that we can not only advance our climate agenda but also advance equity."

You can read more information about the proposal on the governor's website.

Don't expect the worldwide chip shortage to end any time soon. Bloomberg and The Washington Post note the US Commerce Department has published a semiconductor supply chain report estimating that the global shortage will last until at least the second half of 2022. "We aren't even close to being out of the woods" with supply problems, Department Secretary Gina Raimondo said.

Many companies are particularly sensitive to problems, too. The median chip inventory for a client company plunged from 40 days in 2019 to under five days in 2021. Even a relatively short (weeks-long) disruption overseas could shut down an American factory, the Department said.

The shortage is particularly damaging to broadband companies, car makers and medical device producers, according to the report. Despite early claims, there wasn't evidence hoarding contributed to the shortfalls. Demand was higher, too, with median interest about 17 percent higher in 2021 than it was two years earlier. The Commerce Department's study was comprehensive, obtaining supply chain data from almost all major semiconductor firms and companies across a range of industries.

Officials concluded the government couldn't directly end the shortage. Private companies were "best positioned" to overcome challenges by increasing production, optimizing their designs and limiting the impact on their supply chains. However, Raimondo used this as an opportunity to plug President Biden's proposed $52 billion subsidy through the US Innovation and Competition Act (USICA). The investment could help "rebuild American manufacturing" and boost domestic supply chains for "years ahead," she said.

Factories resulting from USICA money wouldn't be ready for years, however, and the bill itself has been delayed. While it passed a crucial Senate vote, the House bill is only expected to surface by this week at the earliest. It could take longer to both clear the House and evolve into a final form Biden can sign into law. For now, the tech industry largely has to solve this dilemma on its own.