2024 Legislative and Regulatory Priorities

Competition

Mergers: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Department of Justice (DOJ) should evaluate mergers based on their effect on competition and not with a politically motivated agenda. FTC Chairman Lina Khan is not applying this critical long-held determination standard but is instead pursuing a political agenda to restructure how our economy operates. This approach will significantly damage our nation’s economic stability and the viability of businesses and jobs — and hurt consumers, not help them.

Government price controls: The FTC is also misusing its authority to micromanage businesses’ pricing structures, which undermines their ability to offer consumers different price points. One recent example is the FTC’s attempt to ban what it defines as “junk fees.” Many of these fees serve the purpose of differentiating the cost of services. For example, late fees represent the costs companies bear due to a missed payment. Banning the ability to charge them to the consumer, who failed to pay on time, ultimately requires those who don’t pay late to pick up the tab through higher prices. Foodservice equipment distributors face the same scrutiny, compounding downstream pressure and dealing a greater blow to foodservice operator’s costs.

Counterfeit equipment: FEDA supports the Customs Modernization Act. Our distributor and manufacturer members are concerned about the increasing amount of counterfeit equipment entering the United States and the impact on our industry: loss of sales, poor equipment quality and consumer misinformation. Ninety percent of companies with online sales have experienced a 10 percent drop in revenue due to counterfeit products. Last year in the United States, counterfeit products cost businesses over $200 billion and 750,000 lost jobs.

Artificial Intelligence

Multi-pronged approach to AI regulation: Educate the public about AI's benefits, advocate for risk-based federal policies, bolster American leadership, and push back against a patchwork of state regulations.

Efficiency: Policymakers must evaluate the applicability and enforcement of existing laws and regulations and focus on filling gaps in existing regulations to accommodate new challenges created by AI usage.

Neutrality: Laws regarding AI should be created only as necessary to fill gaps in existing law, protect citizens’ rights and foster public trust. Rather than trying to develop a one-size-fits-all regulatory framework, this approach to AI regulation allows for the development of flexible, industry-specific guidance and best practices.

Proportionality: When policymakers determine that existing laws have gaps, they should attempt to adopt a risk-based approach to AI regulation. This model ensures a balanced and proportionate approach to creating an overall regulatory framework for AI.

Collegiality: Federal interagency collaboration is vital to developing cohesive regulation of AI across the government.

Flexibility: Laws and regulations should encourage private sector approaches to risk assessment and innovation. 

Immigration Policy

FEDA joins other business advocacy groups to urge Congress to enact measures this year to improve the border and our legal immigration system by:

• Increasing the human, physical and technological resources along the southern border and at our ports of entry
• Sensibly reforming our nation’s asylum laws
• Instituting modern, effective and efficient employment verification reforms
• Significantly increasing the annual quotas for employment-based immigrant and nonimmigrant visas
• Expanding the scope of essential worker programs, specifically allowing employers to meet temporary labor needs in non-seasonal jobs
• Creating new visa options for international students, entrepreneurs, and other high-demand workers to help American employers meet their critical workforce needs.

Tax Policy

FEDA supports the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024, which includes provisions for jump-starting domestic capital investment and economic growth, such as a reduction for domestic research and experimental expenditures, extension of allowance for depreciation, amortization, or depletion in determining the limitation on business interest and extension of 100 percent bonus depreciation.

In addition, FEDA urges Congress to enact the Main Street Tax Certainty Act to make the 20 percent pass-through deduction permanent. Allowing the 20 percent pass-through deduction to expire at the end of next year would directly hurt workers and the economy.