Technologies to capture and store carbon must be part of the arsenal to fight climate change. To deploy them at scale, policymakers should expand federal incentives, increase RD&D for traditional and novel technologies, and expedite permitting and siting of requisite infrastructure.

Geographic differences in broadband deployment exist, but ITIF’s analysis of Census data and facts on the ground show they are best explained by income variations and barriers to adoption, not by racial discrimination.

Until a significant share of America’s leaders believes the United States is in economic competition with other nations—and that it has a right and duty to win that competition—generating the political will for a national advanced-industry strategy will be difficult.

The Senate’s main antitrust bills—the American Innovation and Choice Online Act and the Open App Markets Act—emulate a stalled House package and the EU’s deeply flawed Digital Markets Act. They err on many fronts, and the main arguments for them are at odds with reality.

“Defending Digital” Series, No. 4: Claims that Big Tech is making too much money off of “our data” are wrong in two fundamental ways: The data about most individuals isn’t worth very much—and when consumers use a business service, the resulting data isn’t “theirs.”

Private firms face a number of challenges that limit their willingness and ability to share mobility data. The government’s role should be to coordinate the behavior of individuals, companies, and researchers toward social good.

Expenditures for retail prescriptions have been roughly stable for the past two decades as a share of total U.S. health-care expenditures. Instead of applying broad price controls, policymakers should promote affordability and mitigate out-of-pocket costs for individuals.

In revising merger guidelines, antitrust agencies should refrain from embracing the populist narrative that pursues market deconcentration and corporate disintegration at the expense of companies’ innovation, efficiency, and competitiveness.

There are multiple opportunities to advance solutions to major societal challenges by fostering transatlantic cooperation in biotech policy. But developing and applying them will require a return to science-based regulation that advances safety while enabling, not deterring innovation.

“Defending Digital” Series, No. 3: Policymakers on both sides of the aisle are itching to curb the power of Big Tech. But the history of the digital technology business shows that targeted remedies are much more effective than sweeping government interventions.

Multi-user immersive experiences (MUIEs)—three-dimensional, digitally rendered environments where multiple users can interact with other people and virtual objects in real time—present new content-moderation challenges. Policymakers should work with those developing MUIEs to balance user safety, privacy, and free expression.

In his shift to a “worker-centric trade agenda,” President Biden should reject the counsel of anticorporate, antitrade progressives who deny that U.S. companies’ interests align with U.S. workers’ interests. A new competitiveness-focused approach to trade policy can support both.

President Biden recently announced the administration is reigniting its “Cancer Moonshot” initiative, but its drug-pricing agenda presents a problem.

Antitrust bills targeting “big tech” counteract competitiveness legislation like the America COMPETES Act.

Meeting the challenge of China’s mercantilist, state-directed economy will require much more than piecemeal competitiveness initiatives, as important as they are. It is time to incorporate a competitiveness focus into most if not all major areas of U.S. policy affecting the economy.

The FTC plans to follow Europe’s precautionary approach to antitrust by enacting preemptive rules of per se illegality. But American precautionary antitrust is both unlawful and economically harmful, as it opposes dynamic competition, which benefits consumers and innovation.

There are many ways the United States can rejoin trading partners in shaping digital trade in the Asia-Pacific. But in choosing its path, the administration should not allow misguided opposition deter it from insisting on binding rules for data flows and other key digital economy issues.

“Defending Digital” Series, No. 2: Policymakers are well aware of the privacy risks that come with modern digital technologies, but they largely ignore the many important ways that the Internet and smartphones build privacy into our everyday lives.

The killer acquisitions that Congress seeks to prevent are rare and less likely to occur in technology markets. The proposed legislation will harm an important incentive for start-up innovation and deny consumers the benefits of pro-competitive acquisitions.

In 2012, U.S. lawmakers scuttled legislation to block websites trafficking in pirated content after opponents instigated a furious backlash by claiming it would “break the Internet.” But since then, dozens of countries have done it effectively—and the Internet continues to flourish.

In the absence of a federal privacy law, a growing patchwork of state laws burdens companies with multiple, duplicative compliance costs. The out-of-state costs from 50 such laws could exceed $1 trillion over 10 years, with at least $200 billion hitting small businesses.

Broadband populists have engaged in an aggressive campaign to disparage the performance of the U.S. broadband system, which is driven by intermodal competition between large ISPs, in order to build a case for government-owned and operated networks.

Accelerating clean energy innovation is critical to avert the worst effects of climate change, but the global energy innovation system is in poor health, with weaknesses across most indicators. Nations must rectify these weaknesses to deliver on the promises world leaders made at COP26.

“Defending Digital” Series, No. 1: Policymakers who want to assign blame for societal misinformation (and regulate social media) need to examine both new and old media—conservative and liberal alike. Focusing on one type of media or one particular company is unfair and unwarranted.

With the rise of China, the United States needs more than a competitiveness strategy; it needs a policy specifically tailored to boost production and innovation capacity in strategically important industries—especially technologically sophisticated ones with dual-use capabilities.

Renewables are far from being affordable, available, or reliable enough to meet growing demand for zero-carbon electricity. Scientists have developed promising solutions to these limitations, but it will require sustained, expanded federal investments to grow them to a transformative scale.

The EU’s proposed Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA) in its current form will touch upon a much wider section of the EU’s economy and society than the European Commission publicly states or likely even envisages.

Data portability requirements should be carefully designed to avoid imposing unnecessary costs on organizations, exposing proprietary information, or undermining consumer privacy.

America has lost 70 percent of its semiconductor manufacturing capacity over the last three decades. That serves as a harsh lesson for policymakers: Failing to maintain a supportive policy environment could set up other high-tech industries to falter, too.

Banning personalized ads would threaten about €6 billion of income for the European app economy—a sector that employs 1.5 million people in the EU.

AR/VR technologies have transformative potential in everything from entertainment and communication to workforce development and education. But they also raise unique considerations on issues that policymakers are grappling with in relation to other technologies, such as privacy, safety, security, and equity.

Prohibiting companies from favoring their own products ignores all the ways it promotes competition and benefits consumers. Antitrust reforms should differentiate that pro-competitive self-preferencing from certain exclusionary practices.