Motion to Discharge

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I want to thank Senator Lankford for letting me take 3 minutes to honor an Iowan who recently passed away, a former Member of the House of Representatives. And I think there is only one other United States Senator who would know who I am talking about, and this would be Senator Schumer, who served with this former Member of Congress from 1981 to 1995. Remembering Neal Smith

Mr. President, I would like to take a moment to pay tribute to former Iowa Congressman Neal Smith, who passed away yesterday at the age of 101.

He was a true public servant. He entered public life for the right reasons and had no interest in self-promotion. He cared about Iowa and tried to do his best for our State, and he did.

Neal Smith was a humble but impressive man. He was a decorated bomber pilot in World War II. After attending Drake University Law School with his wife, Bea, and opening a practice with her, he became active in local government.

In 1958, Neal Smith was elected to the House of Representatives, where he served for 36 years. That is longer than any other Iowan has served in the House of Representatives.

When I was first elected to Congress as the only Republican in the Iowa delegation, Neal Smith forgot about politics and was a mentor to me. I have never forgotten that. I try to follow his example. We worked in a bipartisan way on behalf of the people in Iowa, just as it should be.

I remember Congressman Smith as a real defender of agriculture, small business, as a great Iowan, and as a good friend.

Barbara and I extend our condolences to his family. They will be in my prayers.

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, it was a pleasure to work on this legislation with Senator Klobuchar, so we joined forces--it happens to turn out that there are 10 of our Senate colleagues--in a bipartisan way to introduce this legislation that we call the American Innovation and Choice Online Act.

This bill has garnered support from all sides of the political spectrum and, of course, is a very commonsense measure, which is meant to increase competition on dominant digital platforms.

Today, there are only a handful of dominant companies that control what Americans can buy, what they hear, and what they say online.

Big Tech has powers over the economy that we haven't seen in generations or perhaps ever, and this power grows even larger, taking over yet more of our daily lives. With this power, Big Tech is able to pick winners and losers on their platforms.

The goal of the American Innovation and Choice Online Act is to ensure that Big Tech can be held accountable when they engage in a discriminatory and anticompetitive manner.

This legislation sets clear rules that businesses on dominant platforms must follow. This will help promote competition by targeting harmful conduct, while ensuring that innovation and pro-consumer conduct is protected.

I want to be clear. Big Tech platforms offer great products to their consumers. This isn't about breaking up companies or penalizing them for being successful. This is about ensuring that small businesses have a fair and even playing field when utilizing a dominant online platform.

I also want to address many of the falsehoods that have been spread by the opponents of this legislation. Nothing in this bill will require a company to shut down their marketplace or prevent those companies from selling their own branded politics.

Also, nothing prevents a search company from showing maps or answer boxes in their search results. And, also, cellular phones can be sold with preinstalled apps. This bill simply sets clear, effective rules to protect competition and users doing business on dominant online platforms.

I am a strong believer in the free market. The United States is still the greatest country in the world for starting and growing businesses. But Big Tech is making it more difficult for small businesses to realize success on these dominant platforms. So with this legislation, Congress must update our laws to keep up with the growing and evolving online ecosystem.

Big Tech has the power to determine when and what we can buy, see, and say online. Big Tech also has the power to destroy companies, small and large, by denying them access to consumers and even to the internet itself.

It is time that we ensure there is effective antitrust enforcement so the American people can take the power back from these Big Tech giants.

I want to again thank Senator Klobuchar for her work with me on this legislation. I also want to thank all of my colleagues from both sides of the aisle who have joined in cosponsoring this legislation.

In the House of Representatives, we have Congressmen Cicilline and Buck, who introduced a similar bill earlier this year, which has already been marked up and passed out of the House Judiciary Committee.

The American Innovation and Choice Online Act is a bipartisan, bicameral bill, and I hope that we can move it forward so we end up bringing real, positive change to the benefit of all Americans.

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