On February 12, 2025, the House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky) and Vice Chair John Joyce (R-Pa) announced the formation of 12-member working group tasked with developing comprehensive data privacy legislation to establish a national privacy framework governing how companies can collect, use, and share personal data.

The announcement of the working group comes shortly after the U.S. Chamber Association submitted a letter to House and Senate leaders urging Congress to take legislative action to pass a comprehensive national privacy law.  As set forth in the letter by the U.S. Chamber Association, in the absence of a federal standard, a growing number of states have attempted to fill the gap by passing their own privacy laws.  According to the letter, the current situation has left businesses grappling with a confusing and inconsistent patchwork of rules and regulations that vary from state to state. 

Previous attempts to pass comprehensive federal privacy legislation have all failed.  Most recently, lawmakers introduced the American Data Privacy and Protection Act in 2022 and the American Privacy Rights Act in 2024, but neither garnered sufficient support to even proceed to a floor vote.

The working group now seeks to craft a bill that it claims will address issues that prevented the prior bills from garnering enough support to pass. However, it will face the same substantive and political roadblocks that have plagued attempts at a national privacy law in the past—including the fact that there will be pressure on California Republicans to object to a bill that preempts the CCPA.

Stakeholders interested in engaging with the working group can reach out to PrivacyWorkingGroup@mail.house.gov.