Biden set to sign anticompetitive executive order targeting big business
by Associated Press
Biden's order includes a flurry of consumer-pointed initiatives that could potentially lead to new federal regulations.
On Jul. 9, President Joe Biden is set to sign an executive order that the White House bills as an effort to target anticompetitive practices in tech, health care and other parts of the economy while boosting workers’ wages and consumer protections.
The sweeping order includes 72 actions and recommendations that the White House says “will lower prices for families, increase wages for workers, and promote innovation and even faster economic growth.”
The order includes calls for banning or limiting noncompete agreements to help boost wages, allowing rule changes that would pave the way for hearing aids to be sold over the counter at drugstores and banning excessive early termination fees by internet companies. It also calls on the Transportation Department to consider issuing rules requiring airlines to refund fees when baggage is delayed or in-flight services are not provided as advertised.
“In total, higher prices and lower wages caused by lack of competition are now estimated to cost the median American household $5,000 per year,” the White House said in a fact sheet outlining the order Biden is expected to sign at an afternoon ceremony. “Inadequate competition holds back economic growth and innovation.”
The White House said Biden’s order follows in the tradition of past presidents who took action to slow growing corporate power. Teddy Roosevelt’s administration broke up powerful trusts that had a grip on huge swaths of the economy, including Standard Oil and J.P. Morgan’s railroads. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration stepped up antitrust enforcement in the 1930s.
Biden’s order includes a flurry of consumer-pointed initiatives that could potentially lead to new federal regulations, but it also includes plenty of aspirational language that simply encourages agencies to take action meant to bolster worker and consumer protections.
The order seeks to address noncompete clauses — an issue affecting some 36 million to 60 million Americans, according to the White House — by encouraging the Federal Trade Commission to ban or limit such agreements, ban unnecessary occupational licensing restrictions and strengthen antitrust guidance to prevent employers from collaborating to suppress wages or reduce benefits by sharing wage and benefit information with one another.
The order also includes several provisions that could affect the agricultural industry. It calls on the U.S. Department of Agriculture to consider issuing new rules defining when meat can use “Product of USA” labels. It also encourages the FTC to limit farm equipment manufacturers’ ability to restrict the use of independent repair shops or DIY repairs — such as when tractor companies block farmers from repairing their own tractors.
