Barney Frank’s HR 6870: Payments System Protection Act of 2008, passes the House Financial Services Committee!

Today HR 6870 passed the House Financial Services Committee by a vote of 30-19. The text of HR 6870 is below. To sum it up, if this is passed into law, it will alter the UIGEA to specifically exclude poker from being covered and only apply that law to sports betting.

The next step appears to be for Frank to attempt to attach this bill to a guaranteed to pass piece of legislation, much like Bill Frist did attaching the UIEGA to the Safe Port Act.

This is only one step in a long road but a very important one. Today is a good day for online poker. If this legislation passes, it will open the door for Party Poker and other poker rooms to re-enter the US market.

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Payments System Pro-
tection Act of 2008’’.

SEC. 2. PROHIBITION.

The Secretary of the Treasury and the Board of Gov-
ernors of the Federal Reserve System, whether acting
jointly or separately, may not propose, prescribe, or imple-
ment any regulation under subchapter IV of chapter 53
of title 31, United States Code, or otherwise give effect
to such subchapter or any such regulation, including the
proposed regulations published in the Federal Register on
October 4, 2007, except to the extent as any such regula-
tion pertains to wagering of the type that is prohibited
(as of the date of the enactment of this Act) under chapter
178 of title 28, United States Code (relating to profes-
sional and amateur sports protection) or except as pro-
vided in section 3.

SEC. 3. RULEMAKING TO IMPLEMENT SUBCHAPTER ON
PROHIBITION ON FUNDING OF UNLAWFUL
INTERNET GAMBLING AND DEFINE UNLAW-
FUL INTERNET GAMBLING.

(a) INGENERAL.—Notwithstanding section 2, the
Secretary of the Treasury and the Board of Governors of
the Federal Reserve System, in consultation with the At-
torney General, shall jointly develop and implement regu-
lations (which the Secretary and the Board jointly deter-
mine to be appropriate), on the record after opportunity
for agency hearing involving an administrative law judge
or similar official, under subchapter IV of chapter 53 of
title 31, United States Code, that shall include a definition
of the term ‘‘unlawful Internet gambling’’ for purposes of
such subchapter and such regulations, after conducting a
full economic impact study of the proposed regulations
under chapter 6 of title 5, United States Code (commonly
referred to as the ‘‘Regulatory Flexibility Act’’).

(b) COORDINATIONWITHPROHIBITION.—Upon the
effective date of final regulations under subsection (a),
section 2 shall cease to apply.