New Hope Arises with HR6870

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Brank has introduced HR 6870, if your unfirmiliar with what HR 6870 is it's the Payment System Protection Act.  The bill will ensure "that implementation of proposed regulations under subchapter IV of chapter 53 of title 31, United States Code, does not cause harm to the payments system, and for other purposes.”

This new bill will instruct the United States Treasury and Federal Reserve to work together with the Attorney General's office.  Their chore will be to establish what is considered acceptable under the provisions of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA).

HR6870 is expected to be marked up on Tuesday and is already on the schedule posted on the House Financial Services Committee website.  HR6870 states. “The Secretary of the Treasury and Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System may not propose, prescribe, or implement any regulation [of the UIGEA]… except to the extent as any such regulation pertains to wagering of the type that is prohibited under [the Wire Act] (relating to professional and amateur sports protection).”

The regulations of the current UIGEA would be immediately suspended except those that are related to online sports betting under the Wire Act of 1961.  The bill then goes to state that the Treasury and Federal Reserve, “shall jointly develop and implement regulations (which the Secretary and the Board jointly determine to be appropriate), on the record after opportunity for an agency hearing involving an administrative law judge or similar official.”

The bill is calling for a formal definition of 'unlawful internet gaming' and a full economic impact study of the proposed regulations.  HR6870 barely made it under the wire as there is only a few weeks remaining in the 2008 Congressional session.

HR 6870 calls for a formal definition of “unlawful internet gambling” as well as a full economic impact study of the proposed regulations. It was proposed with just several weeks remaining in the 2008 Congressional session.  HR 6870 has a lot in common with HR5767 where Congressman Peter King introduced an amendment that would have required the Treasury and Federal Reverse to work together with the U.S. Department of Justice to establish what is considered legal under the UIGEA.

But it never passed with a split vote of 32 to 32 leading to it's defeat.  The vote was then followed by an oral vote of HR 5767 without the amendment but again it got voted down so now we all must pin our hopes on the new bill, HR6870.