Sen. Amy Klobuchar Calls For More Aggressive Competition Policy Action

January 28, 2021—Senator Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, said the administration of President Joe Biden needed to address competition and privacy in a speech concluding the State of the Net Conference on Wednesday.

In the middle of stating that large U.S. corporations are growing at an unprecedented rate, Klobuchar – who unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic Party nomination last year – quickly interjected, saying “Yes, they were incited to do it!”, referring to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol building January 6.

Klobuchar repeated similar principles to the those she said at Biden’s inauguration on January 20. “This is the day our democracy picks itself up, brushes off the dust, and goes forward as one nation, America.” As a nation we need “to usher in a new era of healing and unifying, to come together in the crisis.”

As many agree that tech companies are presently one of the biggest offenders to consumer welfare, Klobuchar, in search of solutions, turned to talk about how America was built on open markets and competition, citing the railroad, beef, sugar, and oil industries. “The core of those monopolies was about competition,” she said.

Senator Klobuchar called for increasing “competition policy,” rather than “antitrust policy,” and said enforcement of competition in markets needs to be more serious. She claimed that breaking up large, monopolistic corporations was not a radical action, and could even spur more innovation.

Klobuchar blamed an “increasingly conservative federal judiciary” as the culprit behind antitrust issues, and then reiterated past and present bills she has co-sponsored and is currently authoring to fix antitrust issues. “More enforcement staff, and updated laws that will stop harmful consolidation practices are part of the answer,” she said.

Though she blamed conservatives for current antitrust issues, Klobuchar did show appreciation for the work of the Federal Trade Commission and other government agencies under the Trump Administration, saying that their work was undermined constantly by “current political comments.”

Klobuchar also expressed her approval that Merrick Garland, Biden’s nominee for Attorney General, because he has actually reviewed antitrust cases and understands the law.

She said that Scottish philosopher Adam Smith warned centuries ago about the growing army of monopolies, and we cannot allow history to repeat itself.

Klobuchar was introduced by Amie Stepanovich, executive director at Silicon Flatirons Center for Law, Technology, and Entrepreneurship.