POLITICO: Hill Leaders Urged to Strip Shop Safe From USICA Conference

On March 8, the Coalition to Protect America's Small Sellers (PASS Coalition) joined 37 stakeholder partners in a letter to congressional leadership requesting the removal of the SHOP SAFE Act (H.R. 5374) from the conference legislation between the Senate’s U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (USICA) and the House’s America COMPETES Act. The groups warned that, as currently written, the SHOP SAFE Act could impose unreasonable regulations on electronic commerce companies to prevent the sale of counterfeit products. “Congress should not shoehorn this kind of dramatic policy change into the final compromise between USICA and America COMPETES or other ‘must-pass legislation,” the letter states. “Allowing SHOP SAFE to proceed, as-is and tacked-on to unrelated legislation, would set a dangerous precedent for policymaking that is fundamentally connected to our economy, innovation, competition, and free speech.”

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POLITICO's ​coverage of the letter can be viewed below. 
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HILL LEADERS URGED TO STRIP SHOP SAFE FROM USICA CONFERENCE: An expansive coalition of industry lobbyists, advocacy groups and academics are writing this morning to press House and Senate leadership to remove the bipartisan SHOP SAFE Act (H.R. 5374) from sprawling competitiveness legislation ahead of a conference between the two chambers.

The bill would create rules that large online marketplaces would need to follow or risk being held liable for the sale of counterfeit products on their sites. Democrats slipped its language into the House’s America COMPETES Act (H.R. 4521) ahead of that bill’s passage in early February. Lawmakers are already gearing up for a contentious conference fight over R&D, trade and foreign policy provisions in dueling House and Senate competitiveness packages this month, and may be unwilling to load another controversy onto their plate.

— Quite the line-up: In a letter to Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the coalition urges congressional leadership not to “shoehorn this kind of dramatic policy change into the final compromise” between the Senate’s U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (S. 1260) and the House’s rival COMPETES Act.

The call comes from an unusual alliance of 38 industry groups and advocates, from tech lobby groups like the Chamber of Progress and the Computer and Communications Industry Association to centrist and progressive advocacy groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge. The coalition claims that SHOP SAFE, in its current form, would require platforms to monitor user posts for potential trademark infringement — a requirement they say small and medium-size businesses would struggle to meet. They warn it could cause smaller companies to remove legitimate posts out of an abundance of caution, or even shut down completely.

“They are not the sort of problems that can be resolved in conference,” the groups said.

— One-two punch: A group of 26 U.S. academics with expertise in trademark law are also piling on against SHOP SAFE this morning. In a letter to congressional leadership, the academics claim the bill “likely hurts every stakeholder and benefits none of them.”

​— Gaming out the conference: Today’s flood of opposition to SHOP SAFE adds to the steady flow that’s been building for weeks, including from lawmakers like Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.). Another bill aimed at e-commerce counterfeits, the INFORM Consumers Act (H.R. 5502), was included in America COMPETES and has so far attracted less opposition than SHOP SAFE.