After the tech company they worked at in Portland closed its doors, Adam Lowry and Michael Richardson took advantage of the Self Employment Assistance Program (SEA) offered in Oregon. The program provides entrepreneurs like Lowry and Richardson the freedom and opportunity to start their own businesses while collecting unemployment benefits.
About three years ago, over the course of six months they used their pooled resources and the money they received through SEA to launch Urban Airship—a Portland-based maker of software that enables “push” notifications on mobile devices. They used this money to pay their rent and keep the lights on while putting the rest of their business expenses on credit cards.
Since that time, Urban Airship has become a multi-million business. So far, $46.5 million has already been invested in the company - including $25 million in recent new backing. With this new funding, Urban Airship plans to double its 118-person workforce this year.
“This is how you create private sector jobs in a tough economy – by being entrepreneurial and creative,” Senator Wyden said of Urban Airship’s success. “Reinventing the employment safety net has allowed people like Adam and Michael – and companies like Urban Airship – to become the face of entrepreneurship.”
Senator Wyden has long championed the SEA program first authoring legislation in 1985 to empower states to provide unemployment compensation to individuals for the purpose of funding self-employment. Currently, only a handful of states take advantage of the program, but due to legislation authored by Sen. Wyden and passed in 2012, all states can now access their share of $35 million in grant funding to create or expand SEA programs.
The U.S. Small Business Association of the U.S. Department of Labor have launched a new website to support state workforce and unemployment agencies in implementing or enhancing Self-Employment Assistance Programs. For more information please visit: http://sea.workforce3one.org/
Kicking off the new year right, Senator Wyden held town halls across Oregon.
The first town hall of 2013 took place in Jackson County and from there Senator Wyden traveled north to Josephine, Douglas, Lane, Benton, Yamhill, and Washington Counties. He then headed to Central Oregon to hold town halls number 645 through 647 in Deschutes, Crook, and Jefferson Counties. While in Sisters, Senator Wyden stopped to chat with local business owner John Leavitt whose store—appropriately named Leavitt’s Western Wear—has been in business for 37 years.
At many of these town halls, Senator Wyden had the privilege of honoring Korean War veterans by presenting them with the senate resolution declaring 2013 as the "Year of the Korean War Veteran." These veterans included 5 veterans in Josephine County, Jim Fagundes in Polk County, Bob Clink in Multnomah County, John Roppe in Crook County, Bob Dougherty in Lane County, and Tom Barrier in Deschutes County.
Last Friday, Senator Wyden spoke on how to smartly advance America's energy policy at the Portland City Club for their Friday Forum.
Senator Wyden pointed to Oregon's historic leadership in energy and natural resources and the role Oregon can continue to play as a leader when it comes to these policies.
Recognizing the problems facing resource-dependent communities in both Oregon and other states, Senator Wyden pledged to work towards long-term permanent solutions and get these communities off the fiscal rollercoaster.
Turning to energy exports, Senator Wyden detailed his concerns that before exporting any energy source we must "look before we leap." Ensuring that unfettered natural gas exports don't harm U.S. consumers and manufacturers is a top priority.
In addition to finding the "sweet spot" between energy imports and exports, as Chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Senator Wyden is committed to looking for the smart balance between traditional and renewable sources. When striking this balance, the fact that climate change is real must be taken into consideration. As Senator Wyden remarked- "inaction on climate change is not an option."
Senator Wyden spoke about the importance of breaking down barriers to innovation and competition at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show. Below are his remarks as prepared for delivery.
“The Freedom to Compete”
January 9, 2013
Good morning. It’s great to be back here at CES. I’m a little surprised to see so many of you this morning. A 9:15 am policy discussion in Las Vegas is usually a pretty risky venture, but I’m glad to be joined by all you. As some of you continue to sip your Red Bull, I’d like you to throw the slogan that says, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” out the window. Instead, let’s establish that “What innovation is demonstrated in Vegas, needs to be disseminated around the world.”
The International Consumer Electronics Show is a hands-on demonstration of how important the Internet and digital technology is to the domestic and international economy. Technology is central to our economy and to our lives. CES is also the opportunity to identify potential threats to this digital economy and determine what action must be taken to address them. The threats to the Internet are real and they are growing
What a difference a year can make. Last year at this time legislation was before Congress that would have censored and broken the Internet. Legislation – infamously known as PIPA and SOPA – that would have stifled the growth of the Internet economy and the jobs it creates.
Although Gary Shapiro and the Consumer Electronics Association invited me and Representative Darrell Issa to come out last year to talk about why those proposals were so harmful, the common thinking was that, while we were well intentioned, Darrell and I were probably in the end nothing but a sizzling meal for the legacy content industry.
The rest is history. In an unprecedented move, Reddit, Wikipedia and other digital innovators orchestrated 2012’s Internet blackout and then the phones and the servers melted under the crush of 15 million incoming calls and e-mails to Congress. Two days after the Internet went dark, a light bulb went on in Congress and PIPA and SOPA were shelved. A journalist for the New Republic said it best: The Internet faced its biggest threat, and won.
But that fight was just one small piece of an ongoing, timeless battle. In 1969, the same year the Internet routed its first packets, the noted thinker Jane Jacobs observed the on-going cycle of economic growth where innovators undermine established economic interests and are in turn undermined by the next generation of innovators.
She pointed out that the only alternative to this process is economic stagnation. That stagnation is the natural outcome of the ability of the incumbent interests to rig the system in their favor with superior political and economic power.
She understood that the only chance we have to preserve economic innovation is for a “third force” to emerge to protect the weak and emergent interest of innovation. Back in Jacob’s time the hope was that this third force would be government, but the last 40 years show how limited government can be in that role. In reality, that third force is you, the people in this room, all of you viewing or reading this speech online, and every one of the 15 million people whose voices were heard last January.
Legislators will do their part. While government cannot be fully counted on to stand up to incumbent interests, there are champions of innovation in Congress, both Republican and Democrat, who will stand against those seeking rig the system to deny innovation a fair shot in the marketplace.
The incumbents often seek special help from the government, claiming they want a marketplace from government intervention; but they don’t get it. The role of the government is to address market failures, and to block cartels, monopolies, and anti-competitive forces that interfere with the effective operation of free enterprise. A legitimate function of the government is to defend the market against the forces interfering with its efficient function.
That is where you come in. If we play offense around an agenda for Internet innovation we can, to use the language of the Oregon Ducks, Win the Day.
With that in mind, here are some ideas to tackle the big challenges that I see down the field. The centerpiece of our agenda should be guaranteeing innovators the Freedom to Compete.
Here is what the freedom to compete in the marketplace means. First, it begins with access to the Internet. Internet Service Providers – wired or wireless – must be barred from practices that discriminate against specific content. The Open Internet order established by the FCC is a good start but it doesn’t go far enough because, in reality, it is not comprehensive. Most of Las Vegas this week, for example, will access the Internet through their wireless connection, which is not fully subject to the FCC order.
It is clear that consumers across this country will benefit if there is more competition among Internet Service Providers. This is not the case today. The FCC estimates that 96 percent of the population has only one or two wireline ISPs to choose from.
If a provider wishes to slow consumers’ Internet connections in order to discriminate against a provider of content, my view is that they should face the anti-trust laws. Senator Franken and I are working on legislation to do just that -- to strengthen the anti-trust laws in order to ensure that the major ISPs cannot use their market dominance to pick online winners and losers.
A similar threat to competition, and one that Public Knowledge should be credited for highlighting, is broadband data caps. There is a case for data caps that manage congestion – manage a scarcity of bandwidth – but they shouldn’t be used to create scarcity in order to monetize data.
The Internet is too important to our common interest to enable bits and bytes to be viewed only in terms of dollars and cents. It is time for legislation to establish disciplines on data caps that give innovators and entrepreneurs the opportunity that is a pillar of our nation’s economy: the freedom to compete. Promoting this freedom begins with the Internet connection, but it must be rooted throughout the Internet ecosystem.
A related concern is the affect of software patents on America’s ability to innovate. Congress should begin a review – a cost-benefit analysis – of software patents’ contribution to the economy. The acquisition of these patents appears less about deploying innovation and more about employing a legal arsenal. The patent system should not, as Julie Samuels at EFF says, operate as a tax on innovation, as it does now. How are you promoting innovation if you stand behind a law that enables a few lines of code to be patentable for 20 years? Software is different than a new invention. It is a building block -- a new set of instructions -- that should be continually built upon and improved.
No discussion of the innovation agenda can take a pass on privacy. For example, it is particularly troubling that the documents Americans leave lying around their kitchen counter receive more privacy protections than the content Americans store in the cloud. A rewrite of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act should address this imbalance. Your help is needed to make this happen.
Also central to a pro innovation agenda are responsible approaches to cyber security. Last year, the CISPA “cyber-security” proposal moved easily through the House only to be stopped in the Senate after there were real questions raised about privacy and the overall effectiveness of the bill. CISPA, like PIPA and SOPA, was a reaction to a legitimate problem – the vulnerability of critical infrastructure, like our energy networks, to cyber attack. But CISPA missed the target.
Let’s address the goals of CISPA without creating a cyber-industrial complex that would produce an endless, losing, cat-and-mouse game in which nimble hackers win all the time. And let’s make sure cyber security isn’t used in a way that exposes the electronic communication of every American to government and corporate snoops.
Having talked about content that Americans want to remain private, let’s spend a minute about content that should be shared. But what chills the sharing of ideas and collaboration is the maximalist approach to copyrights and patents. Rights-holders are too eager to use their power to scare off challenges to the status quo, and this perpetuates stagnation.
Indisputably, the protection of intellectual property is important. The balance between providing rights-holders a monopoly and promoting competition and innovation is just as important. It must be continually re-examined and reconsidered.
Members of Congress are going to file legislation that would penalize false representations, strengthen Fair Use, and provide real due process and for seizures of property. These efforts should be supported.
You can’t guarantee the freedom to compete by stopping at our borders. Unfortunately, the nation’s trade policy and the global trade rules do. I believe the Internet is the shipping lane of the 21st Century.
Today, countries are increasingly imposing barriers to digital goods and digital services for non-competitive purposes. China’s current practice of blocking Google and Facebook is about giving its domestic providers of search and social networking an artificial advantage. It’s anti-competitive protectionism. The discussions in Dubai last month demonstrated the growing interest in foreign regimes to control and censor the Internet.
Let us provide the Obama Administration with clear, statutory negotiating instructions that require it seek open Internet disciplines in all trade discussions.
In conclusion, I will touch on a subject that I alluded to earlier. SOPA and PIPA were responses to a legitimate problem: international copyright infringement and commerce in counterfeit goods. Specifically, foreign websites that are infringing and selling consumers fake– if not unsafe – merchandise.
One of the lessons of the SOPA and PIPA discussion is the recognition that when foreign websites that are providing content – digital or tangible – to consumers within the borders of the United States, any approach to this problem must occur through the prism of international trade policy.
A priority of mine in the new Congress will be to continue to analyze this problem and to ultimately advance legislation to address it. We can fish for tuna without killing dolphins.
We can unleash and encourage more innovation if the nation’s policies ensure one thing: insurgents should be afforded the same opportunities in the marketplace as incumbents. Freedom, that enables competition, should know no boundary established by government or corporation.
This morning, Sen. Wyden headed to the floor to speak out against the FISA reauthorization and to push for amendments offered by Senators Merkley, Leahy, Paul, and himself to increase privacy protections, transparency, and accountability under FISA.
The Intelligence Authorization Bill for 2013 is still pending in Congress, and the Senate may attempt to take action on the bill before the end of the 112th Congress this year. On November 14, 2012, Senator Wyden placed a public hold on the Intelligence Authorization Act to prevent it from passing without serious debate and amendment. In announcing his hold, Senator Wyden cited serious concerns over several of the bill’s “anti-leak” provisions. These “anti-leak” provisions would inhibit free speech, undermine due process protections for intelligence agency employees, and damage the news media’s ability to report on national security issues.
“I think Congress should be extremely skeptical of any anti-leaks bills that threaten to encroach upon the freedom of the press, or that would reduce access to information that the public has a right to know,” Wyden said in a floor statement publicly announcing his hold. “Without transparent and informed public debate on foreign policy and national security topics, American voters would be ill-equipped to elect the policymakers who make important decisions in these areas."
Some of the nation’s leading publications agree with Senator Wyden that these provisions would curb transparency in our national security debate:
On December 4, 2012 the U.S. Senate passed the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012. Included in the NDAA is an amendment written by Wyden which requires the Pentagon to disclose and justify to Congress any contracts that contain indemnification clauses that hold military contractors harmless of acts of negligence.
Last month, a jury ordered defense contractor Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to pay $85 million in damages to troops negligently exposed to toxic levels of sodium dichromate in Iraq. Under a previously-classified indemnity clause in their contract KBR was allowed to sue the Federal government to recoup those damages and pay their court costs. Wyden’s amendment ensures that Congress is not left in the dark about clauses that leave the taxpayer holding the bill for a contractor’s wrongdoing.
“What KBR received -- and Oregon soldiers and the American taxpayers may be stuck paying for -- is a get out of jail free card that no one outside of the Pentagon had any say in giving them,” Wyden said.
The reauthorization of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 is expected to come up for a vote in the Senate before the end of this year.
Senator Wyden and a number of other Senators are trying to learn more about the privacy impact of the FISA Amendments Act and have pressed the National Security Agency and the Director of National Intelligence to provide more information.
Below is recent correspondence these Senators have sent and received from both the National Security Agency and the Director of National Intelligence regarding their privacy concerns.
On December 3, Senator Wyden attended the 10th Annual Oregon Leadership Summit. Over 800 community and business leaders were also in attendance.
Senator Wyden is credited with coming up with the idea for the Oregon Leadership Summit ten years ago-- an idea that grew out of the town hall meetings he holds in every Oregon county every year.
“We knew this was going to be well received, but it far exceeded what we actually thought was possible,” said Senator Wyden to the Portland Business Journal about the Summit's 10th anniversary.
At this year's Summit, Senator Wyden praised the Oregon Business Plan and its aim to create businesses and industry in Oregon that sustain local economies and communities. Senator Wyden also spoke of sustained economic growth on a national level.
“So here’s my take on what has to be done in Washington, D.C.” said Senator Wyden. “We must stop patching the broken mess that creates problems like the fiscal cliff and start working on fresh reforms that will service as a launching pad for sustained economic growth.”
Senator Wyden stressed that these fresh reforms must include: investing in transportation infrastructure, transparency in trade negotiations, cybersecurity policies that encourage innovation, and comprehensive tax reform. Importantly, since all this takes an educated workforce, students and workers should be able to apply a cost-benefit analysis to their education and training.
