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Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers is vowing to push forward with passing a federal privacy bill even after canceling a planned markup last minute Thursday morning.
The big picture: After House GOP leadership held a call with E&C members last night and discussions over the bill spilled into the morning, APRA is back to the drawing board.
"We needed to regroup," CMR told reporters in the Capitol following the cancellation.
- "This is not how the House is supposed to operate, but we're going to regroup and continue to fight to get this done."
- "There's been a lot of confusion and misrepresentation of what the bill does, unfortunately, and we're gonna need some more time to provide that clarity."
CMR said she wants to re-schedule the markup as soon as possible.
- "We were working through it at the last minute and ultimately decided that we should wait for another day."
- She said at the beginning of the week she believed she had the votes for the bill to advance out of committee, but there "was a lot of input from leadership" to give it more time to work through issues.
- CMR said House GOP leadership was not supportive of the bill in its current form as of this morning's cancellation.
Behind the scenes: That lack of leadership support made today's markup untenable.
- But House Speaker Mike Johnson posted on X shortly after: "It is time for Americans to have greater control over their privacy online, especially for the safety of our children. I am committed to working to build consensus in the House on a data privacy bill."
- One GOP lawmaker who asked not to be named in order to speak freely said: "The speaker and leader had a number of conversations with her leading up to this... If the message was received, this could have been averted."
- "We all agree on the objective," of passing privacy legislation, said Rep. Kat Cammack. "There's still many things to work out, and it's a process that's going to be complicated."
What's next: A House GOP aide said issues like preemption and a private right of action would continue to be worked out with leadership, stakeholders and Sen. Maria Cantwell, CMR's Senate counterpart on the bil.
- The committee did not name a new date for the markup or any plans for the other bills that were supposed to be marked up today, including the Kids Online Safety Act.
Juliegrace Brufke contributed to this report.
