Legislation has been reintroduced that would remove the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust enforcement authority and give it to the U.S. Department of Justice.
U.S. Representative Ben Cline (R-Virginia) introduced the One Agency Act last week. The FTC and the DOJ have shared antitrust jurisdiction for more than 100 years, but conservatives are jumping aboard President Donald Trump’s plan to streamline government.
"Consolidating antitrust authority under the Department of Justice is an efficiency measure that is going to improve antitrust oversight," Cline said in a Reuters story.
Bork
| File photo
The DOJ has sole antitrust authority over some industries, and the others are split among the two agencies. Cline’s bill would combine the FTC’s Bureau of Competition with the DOJ’s antitrust division.
The bill was first proposed in 2020 by U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah), who is expected to lead the Senate Judiciary’s antitrust subcommittee.
“Rep. Cline’s legislation achieves the same goal as my One Agency Act, and I support it,” Lee told Legal Newsline. “For too long, our two-headed antitrust enforcement system has suffered from bureaucratic in-fighting, delays, redundancies, and inconsistency.
“Competition is too important to tolerate these problems any longer, especially when they allow sophisticated players to game the system to their own advantage and avoid accountability for engaging in anticompetitive behavior.”
The president of the Antitrust Education Project says competition usually is a good thing.
“Competition fuels our choices,” Robert H. Bork Jr. told Legal Newsline. “The striving to win the loyalty of consumers gives us better running shoes, smartphones, cars with seat warmers and Pez dispensers with the heads of Marvel superheroes.
“There is, however, one area that is not improved by competition – the government. When two government agencies do largely the same thing, it doesn’t result in competitive efficiency. In the marketplace, the public can vote with their dollars for the best car or clothes. What the government produces, the public has to take – and take all of it.
“Lately, the public has been taking losses in court and the murder of economic opportunity from the two agencies charged with antitrust enforcement power – the Department of Justice Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission.”
Bork said Cline’s One Agency Act brings a “businesslike perspective” to federal antitrust policy.
“This bill targets the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Competition, funded by $213 million and employs 700 full-time economists, lawyers, analysts and support staff,” Bork said. “Under Rep. Cline’s One Agency Act, the Bureau of Competition would be folded in with the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. There would be just one source of federal antitrust analysis and enforcement for Congress to oversee and courts to deal with.”
Bork also cited the efficiency aspect of the bill, but he said it will improve antitrust oversight.
“(Cline’s) bill might also encourage respect for the consumer welfare standard as the North Star of antitrust, instead of injecting ideology and economic inefficiency, as the FTC did under Chair Lina Khan,” Bork said. “Sen. Mike Lee, who proposed a One Agency measure in the recent past, is ideally positioned to drive the One Agency Act in the Senate as the new chairman of the Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee.”
Bork encouraged lawmakers to take action quickly.
“Passing the One Agency Act would be an early win for the 119th Congress,” Bork said.