| | | | |  | | By Erin Schumaker, Carmen Paun, Daniel Payne, Ruth Reader and Toni Odejimi | | | | | 
Rodgers has the backing of key Democrats on her privacy bill, but some Republicans are skeptical. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images | Republicans can’t agree on whether to move forward with House Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers’ bill to set a national data privacy standard. The Washington Republican canceled a committee vote on the bill today after the House’s top two GOP leaders, Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise, told her it was doomed without substantial revisions, our Olivia Beavers reports. Why it matters: The measure would have significant ramifications for companies that collect data related to customers’ health. It would restrict how firms can use the data and require them to get customers’ consent before sharing it. The hangup: The bill’s “private right of action” giving individuals the right to sue tech companies for damages. The GOP leaders said Republicans believe that would spur frivolous suits. Even so: It’s likely the committee would have approved the measure even if some Republicans voted no. Rodgers has the backing of Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and has worked to gain the support of her committee’s ranking member, Frank Pallone (D-N.J.). Still, significant GOP defections would mean no floor vote and be an embarrassment for Rodgers on a bill she hopes will be part of her legacy after she retires from Congress at the end of the year. Two of the Republicans vying to replace Rodgers as chair — Kentucky’s Brett Guthrie and Ohio’s Bob Latta — oppose the bill, according to a person close to Guthrie and a person close to Latta, both of whom were granted anonymity to speak candidly.
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Oak Bluffs, Mass. | Shawn Zeller/POLITICO | This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. Danish livestock farmers will surely hope that their cows, sheep and pigs are not too gassy come 2030, when they will have to start paying taxes for their animals’ farts. Denmark is the first country to tax farmers for their livestock’s methane emissions, which is a strong contributor to climate change, the AP reports. Share any thoughts, news, tips and feedback with Carmen Paun at cpaun@politico.com, Daniel Payne at dpayne@politico.com, Ruth Reader at rreader@politico.com, Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@politico.com, or Toni Odejimi at aodejimi@politico.com. Send tips securely through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp.
| | |  | While mass shooting deaths account for just 1 percent of firearm fatalities, they play an outsized role in how safe Americans feel, according to an advisory Surgeon General Vivek Murthy released this week. The data cited in the report is harrowing, if familiar: 48,204 people died from guns in 2022, primarily by homicide and suicide. They are the No. 1 killer of children and teens. Our collective exposure to violence has created a large-scale cycle of trauma and fear that’s perpetuating America’s mental health crisis, Murthy told Erin. “Mass shootings have a profound impact on the psyche of the country,” he said, adding, “They strike at a deep sense of fear that people have about the fundamental safety of their day-to-day activities.” Murthy’s 32-page advisory quantified those fears, citing statistics on how unsafe many young people and adults feel going about their day-to-day lives. “The data now show it touches the majority of U.S. adults,” Dr. Bruce Scott, president of the American Medical Association, said in a statement, in which he called the advisory an “evidence-based public health approach to addressing firearm violence.” Big picture: Such advisories aren’t issued frivolously. A few have influenced the course of public health like Surgeon General Luther Terry’s 1964 report on cigarettes, which is credited with changing Americans’ perceptions of smoking.
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Newsom made a concession to get an initiative off the ballot. | Mario Tama/Getty Images | A California initiative to convince voters to create a pandemic-prevention institute in the state is kaput, our Will McCarthy reports from Sacramento. Max Henderson, a former Google executive who was the principal proponent of the initiative to fund a first-in-the-nation pandemic-prevention institute through a new tax on those earning more than $5 million, is pulling the measure from the ballot. The backstory: The initiative, formally called the Pandemic Early Detection and Prevention Act, was already hamstrung after $22 million in funding dwindled to $78 after the bid’s principal funder, crypto entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried, was convicted of fraud. Politicians and consultants distanced themselves from the measure in the aftermath. Even so: Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who opposed the initiative, cut a deal with Henderson to drop it by agreeing to expand a state program, the California Initiative to Advance Precision Medicine, to include pandemic prevention language in its charter. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
