Barney Frank, congressman and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, sent a letter advising the Bush administration officials to delay the implementation of several rules that would result in the prohibition ofonline gambling before President-Elect Obama takes over the White House in January, 2009. As reported by the Dow Jones Newswire, the Treasury Department has finished the review of a series of regulations that would ban online gambling activities in the U.S. and is trying to have them implemented in the waning days of the Bush administration. The controversial rules would prevent banks and other financial institutions from processing all kind of transactions, including credit cards, bank transfers and ACH transactions for most online casinos,sportsbetting sites andonline pokerrooms.
Congressman Frank sent a letter this Monday in where he tells Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, that approving and executing the rules as they are "will tie the hands of the new administration, burden the financial services industry at a time of economic crisis and contradict the stated intent of the Financial Services Committee." Frank urged the officials to wait until Obama's administration officially takes office to provide the new government with a chance to evaluate and analyze all the possible the implications and effects the country would face after implementing the rules.
The rules stem from a last-minute addition to a law passed in the final hours of the Republican controlled Congress in 2006. The project to ban online gambling was approved in the last minute by a Republican controlled Congress in 2006, the project was attached to a port security bill that had no relation with the gaming prohibition but that was voted due its relevance for the national security. But even when the bill was voted, the rules proposed by the Treasury in October 2007 don't classify and identify which activities can be considered illegal. Two years after the UIGEA's approval, the Treasury Department hasn't been able to complete a series of rules and definitions needed to implement the ban, partly because the amount of propositions and amendments introduced since 2006.
Frank has strongly opposed any legislation that would require banks to reject to financial transactions related to gambling sites, Frank also has insisted that instead of simply banning online gambling, the government has to regulate and tax some forms of online gaming. Frank's proposal has been well received by other democratic lawmakers, gambling industry representatives as well as banks and financial lobbyists, and even by some Federal Reserve officials.
"I strongly urge you to delay implementation of these major and deeply flawed regulations to permit the incoming administration the ability to review the consequences of a significant policy decision, rather than unfairly being denied that opportunity." Frank expressed in the letter addressed to the government's officials.
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