This week, while the House has been in recess, the Senate has spent most of its time bogged down on the Protect College Sports Act (S. 4668).
This bill would create a national framework for how college athletes can profit from the use of their names, images, or likenesses (NIL), replacing the current patchwork of state laws and NCAA rules.
But the bill goes beyond NIL. It would initiate a massive regulatory overhaul of college sports with new rules for eligibility, transfers, recruiting, and more. Read more on this legislation here from ESPN.
Stay tuned for whether the Senate gets this bill done before it leaves town at the end of next week or punts it down the field. As of this writing, the Senate is working through possible changes from negotiations led by Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA).
The Senate has also been negotiating a big permitting reform package to speed up federal reviews of major energy and infrastructure projects. Unfortunately, a final deal continues to prove elusive as top negotiators—Senators Mike Lee and Shelley Moore Capito on the Republican side and Sheldon Whitehouse and Martin Heinrich on the Democrats’ side—have been unable to reach an agreement.
The White House has been pushing for a deal on the energy reform package in the hope that this could be a breakthrough to lower U.S. energy costs. With Senators flying out of town today, we’ll see if they can get it across the finish line, or if the package will have to wait until after the election in the lame-duck period.
Lastly, on Tuesday, Senator Mike Lee attempted to pass the voter ID component of the SAVE America Act by unanimous consent. Democrats blocked his effort.
While conservatives continue to fight to ensure that only American citizens get to decide American elections, it has become increasingly unlikely this can be done before the midterms, despite the President, the House of Representatives, conservatives in the Senate, and millions of voters all pushing the Senate to act.
ICYMI…
- Don’t miss this piece about CPI’s very own Cleta Mitchell: The Mother of the SAVE Act
- Vice President Vance’s anti-fraud task force is removing 760,000 allegedly fraudulent Obamacare enrollments, saying they either failed to meet eligibility requirements or do not even exist at all
- The Department of Homeland Security announced it is investigating 1,620 cases of alleged voter fraud involving noncitizens casting ballots in U.S. elections.
- Paul Gottfried in Chronicles: More Con Inc. Gatekeeping
- Kenin Spivak in RealClearPolitics: Smithsonian CEO Resigns. He Should Have Been Fired.