Ed Markey

I applaud you efforts re: Columbia Gas, unfortunately you are not seeing the larger picture.

Thank you and the other representatives for coming to our community today, it is encouraging to find that many of my own concerns were those voiced by you and your colleagues.

Will that satisfy you, Chairman Sumwalt?

It has been two weeks since they issued these urgent recommendations. Why can you not commit to implementing urgent recommendations from the NTSB right now, all of them?

Congress should direct development of simple regulations to require the use of computer leak mapping and reporting technologies into gas distribution pipeline safety to assist in evaluating and ranking risk.

We are starting to see fish species from Maryland coming up toward New England.

What is going to happen to our lobster pod in Massachusetts, Cape Cod? They need cold water and, outside of the Arctic, we are the fastest warming body of water on the planet.

We already know that climate change is affecting our wildlife.

Americans do not deserve less protection than the Europeans.

In terms of the eraser button which, at least, should be usable by parents with children 15 and under, do you agree that there should be an eraser button, which is part of the law?

I am confident that we can write that bill in a bipartisan way.

I am the author of the 1998 Children's Online Privacy and Protection Act, COPPA.

The legislation should stop companies from collecting vast troves of users' personal information that have nothing to do with the company's offerings.

A Federal privacy bill absolutely should establish limits.

We must give the Federal Government and states strong enforcement powers.

Should a flashlight application be able to collect information about my interests and location?

I think one of the concerns, and Senator Markey brought it up, is with respect to whether you are able to offer different pricing mechanisms to consumers who want to put a premium on privacy or not.

Should Congress establish enhanced data security standards to protect consumers' private information?

The bill should require companies to keep their customers' private information safe and secure.

We need to extend special protections to 13, 14, and 15 year olds who today enjoy no protections whatsoever.

Data is the oil of the 21st century.

I think the point of disagreement is about whether the proposals before us, the proposed rule and the HONEST Act, whether they move the ball forward or whether they don't, and my reading is that they do move the ball forward.

Requiring transparency is a good first step but we then have to move on to the question of the right of a consumer to say no

So our goal has to be to ensure that any law which we pass out of this committee is a strong law.

And I look forward to working with Amazon and all of you toward putting together a strong national privacy bill before we discuss preemption of state laws.