Cliff Stearns: “I rise in support of H.R. 524, but I do so with some reservation. I am troubled by the bill on two particular grounds…”

“I rise in support of H.R. 524, but I do so with some reservation. I am troubled by the bill on two particular grounds: first, its potential negative impact on e-commerce; and, two, its encroachment on the Committee on Energy and Commerce jurisdiction. Let me take the negative impact on e-commerce and explain this more fully. H.R. 524 'authorizes the National Institute of Standards and Technology to assess critical enterprise integration standards and implementation activities for major manufacturing industries and to develop a plan for enterprise integration for each major industry.' Mr. Speaker, such an authorization seemingly grants an open invitation to a Federal Government entity, NIST, to meddle in voluntary standard-setting activities by private parties relating to business-to-business electronic exchanges. Such a governmental intervention could harbor substantial negative repercussions for e-commerce. Voluntary standards-setting activities by private, non-governmental parties have been credited with the vibrancy and innovation associated with our e-commerce industry. Industry enterprise integration or business-to-business exchanges are a critical component of our e-commerce sector. Today, transactions on such exchanges represent 85 percent of the total value of e-commerce.”