Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios
The Senate Commerce Committee can't stick to its own schedule this year, stalling action on major tech, telecom and AI action in the chamber.
Why it matters: With little legislative time this summer leading into election season, the more these bills get delayed, the less of a chance they have of ever making it past committee.
Driving the news: The committee's calendar keeps changing, with bills set for markup getting pulled at the last minute and progress stalling.
- Three markups featuring AI and telecom bills have either been postponed or rescheduled recently.
Context: A May 1 markup including AI, telecom and spectrum legislation got delayed due to the FAA reauthorization bill.
- A May 16 markup with telecom and social media bills was pulled because too many members had scheduling conflicts, Cantwell spokesperson Tricia Enright said.
- Axios reported that an AI-focused markup had been set for May 22, but the committee never confirmed it and it was never formally noticed.
In the latest example, a markup of Chair Maria Cantwell's spectrum bill scheduled for Wednesday got postponed to June 18.
- Late Tuesday night, Enright said the delay was due to a last minute and "critically important" agreement between the Commerce and Defense departments, and the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to support the bill with some changes.
- Members need time to review the updated language, Enright said.
What they're saying: One source familiar with negotiations suggested the delay isn't surprising because spectrum is just another in a series of complicated bills the committee is handling.
- "Everything in both chambers is subject to delays, but for the Commerce Committee, they just got FAA reauthorization enacted, and that was a big, complicated lift. Spectrum is no different."
- One Senate aide said Republicans are disappointed by the agreement on spectrum and are "throwing sand in the gears," which gums up moving forward on the AI bills.
- Commerce Ranking Member Ted Cruz and Sen. John Thune have a competing spectrum bill in play.
Some Republican senators tell Axios it's a matter of Democratic leadership.
- Cruz and Sens. Ted Budd and J.D. Vance blamed Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer for the delay in moving forward on tech legislation.
- Vance: "Between Maria and Schumer, I like working with Maria. There's been a lot of good legislation that's come out of the Commerce Committee that just hasn't gotten a vote ... and I put that more on the majority leader than anybody else."
- Cruz: "It is frustrating .... and I don't have a good answer about the delays other than it is the chairman that controls the markup."
The other side: "Leader Schumer wants to move the bipartisan Commerce AI bills — which were part of the AI roadmap — as quickly as possible and has been working closely with Chair Cantwell to get them out of committee," Schumer spokeswoman Allison Biasotti said.
- Enright said completing the spectrum bill has been "a tremendous challenge" given Cruz's opposition but with Biden administration support Cantwell is confident the bill will pass with support from both parties.
On the AI bills that have been introduced but not yet marked up, Budd said "we need time to work through them ... but when you put them on the calendar with 15 minutes notice and cancel them, there's not a lot of days on the calendar you can come up with."
- Sen. Todd Young said the AI bills he's introduced were delayed because of the spectrum bill negotiations, and he expects AI legislation to be marked up in the next couple of weeks.
