his friendship. we've been working together for a long time on these issues and i look forward to that continuing. i appreciate his passing of the gavel to me, whether it was voluntary or not. i also appreciated his text last night where he thought if i should be called chair, cochair or clover chair. that's a new one. examine the state of competition across our economy and to consider what should be done to protect, preserve and foster competition in the 21st century. american prosperity was of course built on a foundation of open markets and fair competition. it is competition between companies that give consumers lower prices come forces manufacturers to constantly innovate and improve their products, it forces companies to pay for wages because there's competition for those employees. competition provides opportunities for entrepreneurs to start and grow new businesses, fueling future economic growth. but if you look at our markets today we see big cracks in that free market foundation. we see more and more consolidation. in so many areas markets are not as competitive as they once were and the devastating effect of covid-19 covid-19 a small and medium-size businesses threatens to make things even worse. we lost hundreds of thousands of small businesses. but even before the pandemic, well before epidemic it was clear that america had a major monopoly problem. an example, , the two-thirds of u.s. industries have become more concentrated even between the years of 1997-2012. now, we all know that the problem is most obvious in technology industries, , and we thank our friends in the house, chairman cicilline, chairman nadler, for the hearings that they conducted all last year and the report. i was just people read that report. at the root of this power lies the ability of a few companies to act as gatekeepers. thanks to senator lee we had a hearing together on one of those gatekeepers, google, recently, last year which in this case controls over 90% of the search market, giving it the leverage to hold companies hostage, but even as we recently learned, entire countries hostage, by using its leverage to threaten these countries that they would just pick up the business and their search engine and go somewhere else. that, my friends come is a sign of monopoly. if there was, in fact, greater competition in the tech market, you would see companies that would come up with bells and whistles that i think would remedy some of the problems we have today, if there was to competition we could have small businesses, maybe they would even instagram or whatsapp could've risen up, develop bells and whistles, develop better privacy protections, developed better policies for handling this information, developed arrangements for paying for content. but if you big monopolies that buy up all that potential innovation, , that buy up the small companies, you lose the ability to get at those major challenges. over time if left unchecked the companies dominate markets, exclude the rifles and buy out their competitors, even small competitors compete in what is known as nascent competitors. perhaps we should just look at the words of facebook had mark zuckerberg. in his own e-mail he said this. these businesses are nascent, but the networks established the brands are already meaningful, and if they grow to a large-scale, they could be very disruptive to us. disruption actually as a positive word intact. disruption means you are disrupting the status quo, that you're bringing in new ideas and new competitors. but in the sense when zuckerberg look at some of the smaller companies that were coming up to compete, he thought they would disrupt, what? disrupt the monopoly power of facebook. as he wrote in another e-mail, when you're building a monopoly, quote, it is better to buy then compete. at some point, and i say this to all the senators on the subcommittee, we need to reply to those e-mails, not just by holding hearings and throwing popcorn at a screening of whatever ceo we want to throw st popcorn at, no. not just by getting sound bite for the day but actually responding with action, i responded with legislation. and with all due respect to the views of a few of the witnesses here today, i don't think the status quo is going to do that for us. one of the points we need to make today is that this isn't just about big tech. america's market power problem cuts across our entire economy. we see it in agriculture, and number of republican senators just yesterday approached me about this. we see it in online travel where when people go to these travel sites they think of all these great choices but, in fact, over 90% of the market is owed by just to make of the companies. they simply owns the brand names under them. receipt and the live event industry where one vertically integrated company dominates ticketing events sponsorship and performance venue booking. we see it in everything from captivity caskets. so it is no wonder that two-thirds of americans have come to believe that the economy -- cat food to caskets -- unfavorably favors how interest. why is there a monopoly problem? the big reason is the courts are becoming increasingly closed up to antitrust action. cases like drink go and most recently ohio the american express have made enforcing our antitrust laws more challenging. add to that the fact congress and multiple administrations have failed to ensure that antitrust enforcement budgets have kept pace with the demand of a growing and increasingly complex economy. in 1980 when the justice department antitrust division was working to break up at&t the division had 453 lawyers. 453 lawyers, this includes during the time of ronald reagan. by 2017 and had 330 lawyers. the ftc is a a shadow of its former self. it's 1007 of 19 employees in making 80, down to 1102 by 2018. our agencies cannot fight the biggest companies the world has ever seen with duct tape and band-aids. i know senator grassley has been such a leader on this agrees we are together leading a bill to inject some more investment in these agencies because we know they actually deliver money when they bring these cases to the government. we know it's worth the money, and we also know that we can do it in a way that is not on the back of taxpayers by simple changing the fees assessed on large companies. for them if the drop in the bucket when to bring these mergers before the agencies. the purpose of the antitrust laws is to protect competition. in america when we see a problem we take action, we figure what is working, what isn't working, and we fix it. that's what why i introduce competition antitrust law enforcement and reform act with many people on this committee including senator leahy, and withal in booker off the committee have since joined. the bill would increase the baseline for antitrust agency budget update the clayton act to stop harmful consolidation come out not affect competitive exclusionary conduct a dominant firms, and if you're talking about markets that already highly concentrated, and make of the reforms to protect competition. i will end with this because it truly with senator lee and i started the new year and so much interest on the republican side as well as the interest we already have on the democratic side, this has always been a bipartisan issue. our founding fathers recognized the dangers of monopoly power. the boston tea party and our fight for independence was partly motivated by british government granted monopoly on the key trait. and america's long tradition of promoting pro-competition pro-cn policies have often been led republicans. senator sherman of ohio is republican. teddy roosevelt most notably the nation's most famous trust buster, republican president. our current monopoly power prompted just come out of nowhere during the last administration. it is the product of decisions by republican and democratic administrations over the last 40 years. it took both parties to get us into the situation and it's going to take both parties to get us out of this situation. one good example of that just yesterday senator thune b and i introduced a bill -- center to kennedy -- broadcasted negotiate on a level playing field with the powerful digital monopolies. that now dictate how consumers get most of the news. i think it's three out of four consumers get the news off of facebook and google. we have strong support for this bill. senator mcconnell was on it last year, senator durbin has supported this bill and the companion bill with house members. again bipartisan. we must find common ground on these issues. at stake is nothing less than the future of our economy and the way of life that it supports. this is about saving capitalism and building an economy that works for all americans. it's about laws that throughout our history have rejuvenated capitalism. the breakup of the real trust come the breakup of standard oil come to the breakup of at&t. what did we get out of that come lower long-distance rates. we got innovative cellular phone industry. we got strong at&t that a still employs many people with their own former chairman saying they were a stronger company because of the breakup. we all want successful american companies but if we want to see the rise of the next generation of great american companies we need to reinvigorate our competition policies. i look forward to the witnesses testimony. i turned over to senator lee. thank you. >> thanks so much, madam chair. i want to begin today by talking about the constitution. the utah constitution, that is. i knew i would throw you there, i thought you would be expecting another 1787 moment. instead of going to go to 1896. my states constitution is actually surprisingly insightful with regard to competition policy. article 12 section 20 of the utah constitution says quote it is the policy of the state of utah that a free market system shall govern trade and commerce in the state to promote the dispersion of economic and political power and the general welfare of all the people. each contract, nation in the form of trust or otherwise or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce is prohibited. except as otherwise provided by statute. it is also prohibited for any person to monopolize, attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any of the person or persons to monopolize any part of trade or commerce. this is riveting stuff but it's actually got some good wisdom in it. notice how in utah we had tied free markets and antitrust enforcement. the prohibition against monopolization and the protection of competition itself directly with the dispersion of economic and political power. this was prescient. today our competition problems in this country have truly become political problems. we see this when trillion billion dollars monopolies are eager to impose their ideological censorship all for by their political benefactors. it's worth remembering that some of my colleagues want to punish big technet because engages in too much censorship but because it doesn't censor speech enough, speech with which they disagree that is. that isn't a competition concern. it's extortion but our competition problems go beyond big tech. i'm especially concerned by cases in which free markets and competition are distorted by the government itself, putting its finger on the scale to pick winners and losers in the marketplace, whether through regulation or lacks antitrust enforcement or otherwise. sadly, this, to come has only become increasingly common. for example, many parents at this very moment wish very much they could send their children back to school. in fact, many children who were suffering from a record high s of anxiety and depression themselves wished that they were back in school. but the federal government and many state governments have start the education market competition. instead imposing protectionist policies for public school monopolies. maybe it's education itself had more competition, say by ensuring that funds followed students rather than the schools and teachers unions, parents and students would have more options and better education. speaking of the efforts of the pandemic, last year has been devastating for many small businesses. this is due in no small part to own risk and prolonged lockdowns that shuttered local brick-and-mortar stores and drove consumers into the arms of the tech monopolists like amazon. i'm glad some of my colleagues across the aisle share this concern and i wish we all considered this risk while chewing on some of those same lockdowns. the same thing is happening in healthcare, also. just this past weekend in the midst of the worst health crisis in a century congress forced to hyper partisan expansion the affordable care act, a law that has distorted competition and is been disastrous for consumer choice in health insurance markets. in the airline industry, repeated government bailouts and protectionist regulations have insulated legacy airlines from market forces and foreign competitors. this in turn has allowed them to avoid competing with new rivals, meaning american flyers continue to be subjected to higher prices and lower quality services. yet another example can be found in occupational licensing, something it will be more important than ever to address as millions of americans struggle to find new employment. to that end i will be in reintroducing the act this august interest dates licensing boards are not used as cover for professional cartels that protect market from competition by discouraging new entry. early this week i also reintroduced a bill called the one agency act, consulting or antitrust enforcement at the department of justice is essential to improving and strengthening law enforcement efforts and avoiding the inefficiency and bureaucratic infighting of the past here juss updated version of the legislation also removes the federal communications commission ability to undertake duplicative competition reviews of transactions under its regulatory jurisdiction. the sec's application of the public interest standard has been yet another example of government distorting competition as it's become go to venue for rent seeking by competitors and special interest groups. the constant posed by sec overreach our old we passed on to consumers, consumers who have no say in the process. and those are not the only examples of businesses attempting to list the government in preventing competition. for example, a number of national media conglomerates are making, coming to congress asking congress for corporate welfare in the form of antitrust immunity to allow them to stage a group of boycott against their advertising partners europe despite having to update their business model to account for the internet and the cunning and publishing biased and fake news that many americans consume or simply don't want, these companies believe they are entitled to engage in federally sanctioned when syncing. they also have amazon -- rent seeking. a giant who is not only a giant in online shopping but also in cloud services. it's attempting to have federal judge forced the department of defense, give it $10 billion, $10 billion contract that it lost to a competitor. not only did amazon lose the contract on the merits but giving amazon the contract would only further cemented amazon's market power and make it harder for new entrants to compete. and finally several calls to reform the antitrust laws seek to abandon the consumer welfare standard and to instead address not economic issues like social justice and climate change or simply punish bigness or get one thing to support such goals as a matter of personal preference or political popularity. it's entirely another thing to inform families under strained budgets that they will have to choose between food on the table for the roof over their head because an unelected judge somewhere prefers shopping and local boutiques to the efficiencies that make modern life affordable for the majority of their fellow americans. all of this is to say that i agree. we do have a competition policy problem, though perhaps not in the same way that many have imagined. what we need now is not a sweeping transformation of our antitrust laws. rather, this particular moment calls for two things. first, agency leaders who with the resources and the will to vigorously enforce the laws we have. and second, congressional action to get the government out of the business of the distorting competition. as i said before, we are at an inflection point back in antitrust law and policy, and i'm optimistic that we can find bipartisan consensus on a path forward to improve and strengthen our antitrust enforcement regime. i'm grateful to the chair of her subcommittee, senator klobuchar, for opening this incredibly important conversation, for her friendship and for leadership in this area, and look forward to making progress in that endeavor and in that direction to the city. thanks so much. >> thank you bench, strongly and among those lines that new beginnings we have still allsop has joined her subcommittee and we're excited about that. we will recognize of the people as they come along -- center also. i will introduce the witnesses today. our first witness is george slover. were going opposite order because we are disrupting, i guess things today. a senior policy counsel at consumer reports where he focuses on antitrust and competition policy issues. prior to his position at consumer reports he has had three decades of federal government policy experience including nine years in the house judiciary committee, two years at the house energy committee, and commerce committee and 11 years at the justice department's antitrust division. our second witness today will be ms. ashley baker, the director of public policy for the committee for justice. her area of focus includes the supreme court, technology and regulatory policy and judicial nominations. she is an active member of the federalist society, she serves as a other regulatory transparency project cyber and privacy and outreach on legislation and regulations related to these issues by writing up ads, letter to congress and regulatory common spirit are third witness is mr. barry lynn, director of the open markets >> mr. lynn spent 15 years at the new america foundation researching and writing about monopoly power before that he was executive editor of global business magazine. he has authored numerous articles and several books on the damaging effects of concentrationn of political and economic power including most recently liberty from all masters, the new american versus the will of the people our fourth witness will be mr. yon counsel at the law firm of fresh fields where he focuses on antitrust law. he represents clients related to u.s. merger control joint ventures and antitrust litigation he previously served as an attorney to former commissioner joshua wright of the ftc and in addition he's an professor and w senior fellow at the global aipght trust institute at the g scalia law school at george mason university teaches courses on antitrust law h and economic hes an active member of the antitrust section. our fifth witness who will be with us from professor nancy rose, she is a professor of applied economics in a massachusetts institute of technology and research and teaching focuses on industrial organization, competition policy, and the economics of regulation. previously, she served as deputy assistant attorney general for economic analysis in the antitrust division, the u.s. department of justice, and director of the national bureau of economic researches program on industrial organization. her research includes analysis of antitrust law and economics, economic regulation, and firm behavioror in a variety of transportation and energy markets asgu well as of labor rt sharing and d