Rep. Suzan DelBene on Trump budget cuts, virtual reality, and internet privacy – GeekWire

U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene in Seattle last week. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop)

U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene is perhaps best known as an advocate for progressive technology policy. Before taking office as therepresentative for Washingtons 1st Congressional District, she was a Microsoft executive and CEO of Nimble Technology.

She champions STEM education, privacy, and other internet protections. DelBenespoke about those issueswith GeekWire after the Tech Alliances annual State of Technology luncheon in Seattle on Friday. But she also had some thoughts to share about the Affordable Care Act replacement bill that narrowly passed the House last week.

This is really a terrible bill, kicking people off health care, if it goes through and becomes law, she said. We should be looking at the opportunities we have to continue to improve what we have today and unfortunately, this bill wasnt moving us in the right direction at all.

On the topic of technology, the Democrathas worked with other lawmakers to create two technology-related policy groups last week the Congressional Caucus on Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality Technologies, and the Digital Trade Caucus. Speaking with GeekWires Todd Bishop, DelBene shared her thoughts on how the innovation economy will fareunder the Trump administration, privacy, and other issues in the interview below.

Continue reading for the edited transcript.

Todd Bishop:Id love to start by getting your overall sense for the state of support for science, innovation, technology with the current Congress, the current administration, the state of the Democratic party. Whats your overall take on where things are right now?

Suzan DelBene: Well, when we talk about building a strong long-term economy, a big part of that is making sure were investing in research and development that are coming up with great new ideas for the future. I mean, today, we have an economy built on great ideas that came decades earlier that are fueling our economy today and we need to keep that process going. So, Ive been very concerned about proposed cuts from the Trump administration in investments and research, whether its in NIH and life sciences or NSF or even in areas like USDA and agriculture research. These are hugely beneficial in terms of giving us a great return on our investment but also breaking open new opportunities or coming up with new therapies and treatments for diseases. So, Im a big supporter. I think its a long-term important investment and a big economic driver. And Im happy we have this omnibus that went through that increased funding for example for NIH for $2billion, something I helped champion in getting members of Congress to sign a letter to support that. That ends attheend of September, so what happens on Oct. 1 going forward is a concern and the support for science and research is something weve got to speak loudly about because its not something certain going forward.

Bishop:So, the two caucuses that youre involved in are the Virtual Reality Caucus and the Digital Trade Caucus.The VR Caucus would probably surprise some people because I dont think they would see that necessarily as a big legislative agenda or an economic agenda.

DelBene:Well, I think actually, a lot of the issues of technology that we see are one, educating members of Congress and legislators about these issues. When we started the Internet of Things Caucus, people said whats the IoT Caucus for? And technology people laughed when they heard that but its true these are issues that not all of our legislators, lawmakers, staff members understand. So, Internet of Things Caucus is a way to help educate people on technologies going forward. When we see augmented, virtual, mixed reality type of technologies coming forward, we want to let people understand what those are, what the potential and opportunities are but also address issues that may come up with security and privacy that have been concerns and frankly, we are behind in legislation to adjust these issues. Then also, I helped start the Digital Trade Caucus because issues of cross-border data flows and data localization, free and open internet, these are important issues for trade and services, an area where the U.S. actually has a big trade surplus. Its a very important sector of the economy and its not an isolated sector, its a piece of a lot of different industries. So, bringing attention there and understanding that this has to be part of future trade policies and trade negotiations as people are looking at these issues going forward or if trade agreements are opened up, we want to make sure that people understand the issues involved and were putting forward good ideas.

Bishop: Privacy I know is a big issue for you as well. Weve seen the rollback of the telecommunications privacy regulations and then the states come in and try and do their own piecemeal things. Whats you take on where thats headed and do you see a solution on the horizon?

DelBene:Well, Im very concerned. I think weve seen an FCC chairman who has some differing points of view on where he wants to take, not only privacy on some of these issues but the internet and net neutrality. I think its an issue that is an important issue across the country and its also an international issue. So, I understand why states want to take a role here but I do think that its something thats important that we do at the federal level and something that is going to be important. We talk about these issues of information sharing across the country or around the world. We have to understand what our national policy is in terms of protecting data so that we can also work with other countries and how that will work internationally.

Bishop: Given where things are at the FCC, do you see an opening for Congress to do something that could counteract the trends against privacy and net neutrality there?

DelBene:Well, I think we need to make sure we have a lot of members of Congress here speaking out, but yes, Congress could act. It doesnt necessarily just have to be that the FCC decides. We can put forth legislation to say, Heres what we want the law to be. But we need people engaged and involved and making sure that theres a focus on these issues and thats something Ive been working on and will continue to work on as somebody whos been really focused on this but we need to get more people engaged involved and I know Ive heard from many folks in the general public too, who are concerned about these issues. Hopefully, we can do the right thing in terms of protecting privacy and putting forward investments in innovation and starting to be forward-looking in our policy.

Bishop: What about the email privacy act, in particular, do you see that resurfacing this year?

DelBene: So, you get out the basic things we could do that should be easy to get done. Email Privacy Act passed the House already so, it is done in the House but we need to get it through the Senate. As they say, it aint over til its over. Weve got work to do there. Thats an important one and that should be really simple, just a warrant standard. Just like a piece of paper in your file drawer, digital information should be treated the same. Most people think it already is. So, lets get that through. That should be a starting point, cause we got a lot of old, outdated laws but this should be an easy one. So, Im hopeful but weve still got to convince the Senate.

Bishop: We just heard Reid Hoffman from LinkedIn talk here. One of the things he talked about was the Seattle-Silicon Valley connection and obviously, youve had a front row seat on that in your past with your executive roles. Was there anything there that struck you that youd want to build on or talk about in terms of the regional strengths and just the tech economy acting as one versus multiple regions?

DelBene: Yeah, we still have our competition between California and Seattle.

Bishop: Who are the major representatives down there that you sort of would spar with on this?

DelBene: Gosh, representatives are Anna Eshoo, Zoe Lofgren, Nancy Pelosi, so it can be everything from technology to the Seahawks versus the 49ers which I think weve pretty much beenthe winners on that one.

Bishop: Were good for now.

DelBene: But the interesting thing is, I actually think that when we talk about technology, we also talk about technology in agriculture and in manufacturing and global health and this intersection between biology and informatics which was discussed great work happening with big data at Fred Hutch. I actually think we have a very unique opportunity because we have this broad cross section of technology having a horizontal impact in so many industries versus just it being an industry on its own which were also strong in. I actually think thats a huge, really unique, incredible opportunity in our region that makes us very distinct and unique. Despite all the back and forth as well.

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Rep. Suzan DelBene on Trump budget cuts, virtual reality, and internet privacy - GeekWire