Washington Weekly

Members of the House are back in Washington this week, joining their Senate colleagues in a sprint to finish business by the end of the month and return to the campaign trail. The primary item on the agenda remains funding the government, which must be done by Sept. 30, which also ends the federal government’s fiscal year, to avoid a government shutdown...

This Week in Washington

The expectation is that Congress will pass a continuing resolution, which would simply maintain funding at current levels, that would run into December. Notably, this would include a short-term reauthorization of the National Flood Insurance Program. While the details of that resolution are being worked out, Congress will turn to other matters. Senators may be voting on legislation to codify the legality of same-sex marriage in addition to working through judicial nominees; members of the House could see votes on legislation banning lawmakers from trading stocks on the House floor, as well as a measure honoring the late Queen Elizabeth of England.

At the committee level, lawmakers appear to have taken a sudden interest in insurance issues. The Senate Banking Committee met for a hearing last week delving into insurance issues, which ultimately focused on life insurance, and the House Financial Services Committee has two upcoming hearings of note. The Subcommittee on Diversity and Inclusion will meet Sept. 20 to discuss an expected committee report on diversity at America’s largest insurers, and two days later the Subcommittee on Housing, Community Development and Insurance will examine the impact of increasing wildfire risk on the insurance marketplace.

On the administrative front, President Biden will name the director of a new agency focused on biomedical innovation this week before travelling to the UK for the queen’s funeral next week. At the same time, federal agencies have been ramping up their work with proposals on cybersecurity and litigation lending among other issues. Also a meeting of the Treasury’s Federal Advisory Committee on Insurance is scheduled for later this month.

Federal Advocacy

NAMIC remains engaged with coalitions and Senate staffs in ongoing discussions on the SAFE Banking Act, which would provide insurers and other financial firms with a safe harbor allowing them to do business with cannabis-based businesses in states...

The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Federal Advisory Committee on Insurance will meet at the U.S. Treasury and via videoconference Sept. 29 from 1 – 4:30 p.m. EDT...

The U.S. Senate returned to Capitol Hill Sept. 6 with passing a government funding deal through a continuing resolution prior to the Sept. 30 deadline at the top of the to-do list. Since then, what might be included in the CR has started to come...

The House Financial Services Subcommittee on Diversity and Inclusion will hold a hearing Sept. 20 titled “A Review of Diversity and Inclusion at America’s Largest Insurance Companies.” The hearing is a follow-up to the data request sent jointly by...

Reps. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., and French Hill, R-Ark., the ranking members of the full House Financial Services Committee and Insurance Subcommittee, respectively, sent a letter Sept. 9 to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., urging Democratic leadership...

NAMIC will seek to prompt the federal judge overseeing its challenge to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s rule imposing a disparate impact standard on homeowners insurance...

The Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has released its Cybersecurity Best Practices for the Safety of Modern Vehicles, an update to its 2016 edition. The document describes NHTSA’s guidance to the automotive...

The National Labor Relations Board has published a notice of proposed rulemaking Sept. 7 to replace the “Joint Employer Status Under the National Labor Relations Act” rule published Feb. 26, 2020, and took effect on April 27 of that year...

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission are proposing to amend Form PF, the confidential reporting form used by investment advisers and commodity pool operator/trading advisers, to require them to disclose...

Senators returned to Washington from the August recess a week before their House colleagues, with the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee convening Sept. 8 for a hearing titled “Current Issues in Insurance.” The hearing featured two...