Tech-Savvy Sununu Named to Task Force
By Liz Goldberg
WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 – Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.) was reappointed to the Senate Republican High Tech Task Force by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) on Wednesday, continuing the role he was first appointed to in 2003.
Members of the task force are interested in high-technology issues such as “manufacturing hardware and software, trade and technology and the legislation that would affect those areas,” Sununu said in a phone interview.
Sununu said he would like to focus on protecting intellectual property through trade agreements to ensure that America can “maintain an edge” in innovation, lowering taxes to protect manufacturing and “crafting a strong and deregulatory telecommunications bill that will create a level playing field for investments and new technology in communication networks.”
Sununu has a bachelor’s and a master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He said his background in the sciences helps when dealing with technological legislation. He is also a member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.
The task force was established in 1999 and seeks “to be THE voice of the high technology industry on Capitol Hill,” according to its Web site.
Recently, it has dealt with such issues as Internet taxation, reduction of spam e-mails, the do-not-call phone solicitation list, modernization of military technology and the Class Action Fairness Act, which Congress approved this week.
Including Sununu, 15 senators are members of the task force.
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