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Cline reintroduces bill to transfer FTC antitrust powers

to DOJ

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Proposal aligns with Trump's agenda to streamline

government

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Critics argue consolidation reduces oversight, increases

presidential control

By Jody Godoy

Jan 15 (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Trade Commission's

merger-busting, antitrust enforcement powers are coming under

threat as conservatives look to harness President-elect Donald

Trump's support for limiting government.

On Tuesday, U.S. Representative Ben Cline, a Republican from

Virginia, reintroduced the One Agency Act, which would remove

the FTC's antitrust authority and give it to the U.S. Department

of Justice. The two agencies have shared federal antitrust

jurisdiction, intended to guard against anticompetitive business

behavior, for more than 100 years.

Outgoing FTC Chair Lina Khan's skeptical stance towards

company mergers and expansive view of the agency's authority

drew criticism from some in the business community and fueled

Republican arguments to dial back the agency's power.

Cline's proposal - which was hinted at in the Heritage

Foundation's Project 2025 policy platform - will test Congress'

willingness to streamline the U.S. government through

legislation, a key pillar of Trump's agenda.

Cline, who met in December with Trump's government

efficiency consultants Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, said his

bill fits with their efforts.

"Consolidating antitrust authority under the Department of

Justice is an efficiency measure that is going to improve

antitrust oversight," Cline told Reuters in an interview on

Tuesday.

By law, the DOJ has sole antitrust jurisdiction over some

industries. The rest is divided up among the two authorities.

The FTC takes the lead on pharmaceutical and hospital probes,

while the DOJ oversees healthcare, for example.

For Big Tech and AI, the two agencies have split

responsibility down the middle for probes into unfair market

practices, with the FTC looking into Microsoft ( MSFT ) and

OpenAI and handing Nvidia ( NVDA ) over to the DOJ, despite

having successfully blocked Nvidia's ( NVDA ) bid to acquire chip

designer Arm in 2022.

RESTRUCTURING

The bill would combine the FTC's Bureau of Competition,

which has around 700 full-time employees and a budget of $213

million, with the DOJ's antitrust division, which has around 900

employees and a budget of $225 million.

Both agencies are largely funded through the fees companies

pay when they file for merger review.

The bill would allow the head of the DOJ's antitrust

division to restructure the merged agency. Cline did not have an

estimate of how many positions could be made redundant.

The bill was first proposed in 2020 by U.S. Senator Mike

Lee, a Republican from Utah, who is expected to lead the

antitrust subcommittee next year.

Democrats did not support the bill. It is not clear whether

Cline's version will be combined

with future legislation

under a rule that could allow it to pass with Republicans'

narrow majority in Congress.

The idea of consolidating antitrust enforcement goes back

decades, as does pushback against it. A bipartisan working group

concluded in 2007 that the costs would exceed the benefits.

Critics say the two agencies are a successful tag-team. U.S.

Representative Jerry Nadler, a Democrat from New York, called

the bill an attempt to "abolish the antitrust police" at a

hearing in April.

Nadler warned at the hearing that the bill would effectively

repeal the FTC's broad authority to protect against unfair

methods of competition under the FTC Act, which it used in 2024

to sue pharmacy benefit managers and pass a ban on worker

noncompete agreements.

Putting the DOJ in charge of antitrust enforcement would hand

the White House more control, because the president can fire

political appointees at the DOJ, which is an executive branch

agency. The FTC, in contrast, is a bipartisan independent

agency, whose commissioners can only be fired with cause.

Proponents say that would make antitrust enforcement more

accountable to voters, while critics say it would diminish

oversight.

The FTC's structure and authority also face court challenges

from Meta Platforms ( META ), Intuit, Walmart ( WMT )

and others the FTC has sued, which Cline sees as another reason

to lessen the FTC's jurisdiction.

"These challenges will take years to go through litigation

and appeals. But Congress can protect federal antitrust

authority now," said Cline at the April hearing.