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Markup Session For Barney Frank’s Online Gambling Bill Set In July

Posted on May 23rd, 2010

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The House Financial Services Committee will markup in July the Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection and Enforcement Act or H.R. 2267, a bill authored by Congressman Barney Frank, a Democrat from Massachusetts. Frank is also chairman of the committee.

Frank has not set a definite date for the markup as he made this announcement while speaking at the hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee Wednesday, on legalizing and taxing online poker and gambling. Frank’s bill would set up the policies and principles that would provide the basis for licensing and regulating the Internet gambling operation in the United States. To date, the co-sponsors of the proposal have already reached 69.

The last time Frank’s online gambling bill was discussed by his committee was last December. After that, a follow-up hearing with members of the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve was requested by Congressman Spencer Bachus, R-Alabama, a staunch critic of Internet gambling, and a ranking Republican member in the House Financial Services Committee. Since then, no hearing on online gambling legalization had been taken up by the committee.

A hearing set by the committee in April was canceled and postponed indefinitely because a mix-up in Congressman Frank’s calendar disclosed that he had a previously set appointment in Massachusetts. A number of different issues such as health care, reorganization and improvement of the banking system, the economic recession and others have also caused the committee to be overloaded with work the past year.

Generally speaking, July is not really a good time for Congressional hearings. Capitol Hill has fewer lawmakers present during that period, as most members of Congress are in their respective constituencies from July 5th to the 9th. Also, lawmakers will be full of activities in preparation for the approaching elections in November. In his testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee Wednesday, Frank said that while it is true that the UIGEA was approved by the House by a wide margin of votes, they were fooled by the Senate.

He said the bill was hurriedly passed in the Senate in 2006 by adding it onto a different bill and when that bill, the SAFE Port Act, became law, the UIGEA bill also became law. He said it was a deliberate move by a Republican leader who had plans of running for the Presidency, with help from former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-TN.

At Wednesday’s hearing, no markup took place for McDermott’s bill, HR 4976, the Internet Gambling Regulation and Tax Enforcement Act, and no further hearing has been scheduled for the bill. Actively campaigning and lobbying for the markup of Frank’s bill is the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) who had made an effort before the Wednesday hearing in trying to explain and give lawmakers a mental picture on what is to be expected in the likelihood that Internet poker and gambling will be legalized. Such endeavor resulted in a more than two-hour of animated question and answer period between committee members and two witness panels.

PPA’s executive director John Pappas said that the members of the committee, the most powerful and most coveted committee in Congress, showed a willingness to know more about the issue. The PPA achieved success in their effort to request postponement of the financial services industry’s compliance of UIGEA rules for six months, from Dec 1 to June 1.

It has also submitted a petition to exempt peer-to-peer games from the UGIEA, which is still pending. Pappas said he and his group are looking with hopeful anticipation to the July markup of Franks’ bill. He said they have exerted their best effort in their hope of making it an undertaking involving both political parties. Director, John Pappas, told Poker News Daily that he’s looking forward to July’s event: “We want to see a very successful markup. We want to make this as bipartisan as possible and I think we’re on the right path to do that.”

On June 1st, the financial services industry in the United States must fall into line with the regulations of the UIGEA. Whether the landscape of the industry will change following the date is anyone’s guess. The PPA was successful in delaying industry compliance with the UIGEA rules from December 1st to June 1st. The organization currently has a petition out to exempt peer-to-peer games from the UIGEA, but it has not yet been acted on.