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State of Play

  • Congress is in its final week of session before breaking for the holidays… maybe.

  • The Senate will vote this week on the House-passed version of the NDAA, and is expected to send it to the President’s desk. Senators will also vote on a slate of over 100 nominees before leaving Washington.

  • The House is expected to enter into the health care fight to respond to expiring Obamacare premium subsidies, however, there is no bipartisan deal in sight and negotiations are veering south. Some moderate Members have pushed back over the bill’s limited scope and the collapse of an amendment deal, raising the possibility they could align with Democrats to force votes on extending the subsidies. Congress could possibly push their efforts into next week if a compromise is not reached. 

  • The Tech Weekly will return in the new year to keep you up-to-date on all the latest in Washington tech news. Happy holidays from the Franklin Square team.

Driving the News

  • President Trump issued his highly anticipated executive order to preempt state AI legislation. The EO establishes an AI Litigation Task Force, directing FCC and FTC actions, and conditioning certain federal funding to pressure states to roll back AI regulations the administration views as burdensome or unconstitutional. States have already pushed back with more than 70 state legislators from 27 states opposing the EO.

  • The Trump Administration announced today the creation of the US Tech Force, a two-year program to recruit 1,000 AI and software experts from industry partners like Amazon, Nvidia, Meta, xAI and Microsoft, in order to modernize federal agencies after sweeping workforce cuts. The initiative aims to embed AI across government, sending technologists to high-priority agencies such as IRS and DoD, with participants earning competitive salaries and gaining pathways to long-term public or private sector roles.

Three Things to Watch in Tech

  1. Senate Commerce’s FCC Oversight Showdown: The Senate Commerce Committee will have its long-awaited oversight hearing Wednesday with all the Federal Communications Commissioners, including FCC Chair Brendan Carr.

  • Ahead of the hearing, Carr has met with at least six Republican Committee Members while Democrats plan for a showdown over Carr’s threats to broadcaster Jimmy Kimmel in October, and intend to center the hearing on free speech concerns raised by his remarks.

  • Republican Members have signaled they are largely ready to move past the controversy and instead intend to focus their questions on broadband, spectrum, and other FCC priorities, though some acknowledged the issue may still surface at the hearing.

  1. Senate Banking’s Crypto Will They Won’t They: After much speculation, the Senate Banking Committee will push its markup of crypto market structure legislation into the new year. The decision came in the eleventh hour as Members prepare to leave Washington.

  • Democratic Committee Members last week sent a list of demands to Republicans on changes needed to the current market structure draft, and Republicans countered, offering 30 concessions in exchange for preserving 32 key GOP-baked provisions from their earlier draft. 

  • The offer sent by Chair Tim Scott and GOP negotiators to crypto-friendly Democrats, includes White House–vetted quorum and ethics language, consumer protection provisions, bankruptcy updates, ATM standards, and risk-management requirements, while keeping contested elements such as self-custody and software-developer protections. 

  • The negotiations will likely continue into next year when there is more time to work through the sticking points.

  1. Committees’ End-of-Year AI Hearings: Several committees this week are holding final hearing pushes to get more answers on AI innovation and its impact to certain industries.

  • The House Homeland Security Committee will hold a joint subcommittee hearing with Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Protection and Oversight, Investigations, & Accountability, to examine the quantum, AI, and cloud landscapes and the cybersecurity vulnerabilities with implementing emerging technologies. The hearing will likely be a mixed bag of topics, but AI will likely take center stage as more and more companies, including OpenAI, look to implement cyber protections within their models. 

  • Over in House Energy and Commerce, the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee will hold a hearing to examine the intersection of AI and biotechnology, discussing the challenges and risks associated with AI innovations in synthetic biology.

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🏛️ Tech Hearings

  • The House Judiciary Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust Subcommittee holds a hearing on "Anti-American Antitrust: How Foreign Governments Target U.S. Businesses" - Tuesday, December 16 at 10:00 AM EST 

  • The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology holds a hearing on “Legislative Improvements to Public Safety Communications in the United States” - Tuesday, December 16 at 10:15 AM EST 

  • The House Homeland Security Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection Subcommittee and Oversight, Investigations and Accountability Subcommittee holds a joint hearing on "The Quantum, AI, and Cloud Landscape: Examining Opportunities, Vulnerabilities, and the Future of Cybersecurity" - Wednesday, December 17 at 10:00 AM EST 

  • The House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee holds a hearing on "Examining Biosecurity at the Intersection of AI and Biology" - Wednesday, December 17 at 10:15 AM EST 

  • The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee holds a on hearing "Federal Communications Commission Oversight" with FCC Chairman Brendan Carr - Wednesday, December 17 at 1:00 PM EST

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Franklin Square Tech Weekly 2025 Wrapped

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