UIGEA in the Race Against Time
The President elect is a Democrat. And the Senate and the House will be under Democrat control. Therefore the U.S Treasury is pulling out all stops to try and get the revised UIGEA regulations passed in the closing days of the Bush regime. The practice of getting controversial regulations passed just before leaving office is known as the midnight drop in political parlance.
It may be recalled that the original regulations have been severely criticized by the gambling and financial fraternities as being impractical and vague. In order to address these shortcomings revised regulations were being drafted. An article published in the Dow Jones Newswire reported that the revised regulations have been finalized. The report said that the Treasury Department had forwarded the final regulations to the Office of Management and Budget on October 21, thereby taking a necessary step in the process. Concerned agencies were to submit any pending measures by November 1. The authorities want to complete the process before November 19. There is a special significance to this date. Any law enacted on or before November 19 escapes the standard 60 day review process open to the new President who is sworn in on January 20. Hence by bringing the revised regulations into law before November 19 the administration will ensure that it cannot be reviewed later on. The rush job that marked the passing of the UIGEA is now being repeated. In 2006 the UIGEA was appended last minute to the Safe Port Act and not voted on by the Senate but passed by unanimous consent.
The copy of the revised regulations is not yet in the public domain but the online gambling fraternity is sure that their concerns have not been addressed. Therefore the President of the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) John Pappas is scheduled to meet the officials of the Office of Management and Budget to convey the stance of his association. One of the issues in the UIGEA was the definition of what is illegal gambling. Ed Leyden, President of theInteractive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association (iMEGA), said that the onus of defining this rests with the legislature and not the executive. Therefore even if the treasury has built in a clear-cut definition of illegal gambling into the revised regulations it would still not be acceptable.
Another section that is not happy with the state of affairs is the financial services industry because the UIGEA places the burden of enforcement of the rules on it. At this time of financial crisis these financial institutions can ill afford to invest the huge resources required for this enforcement, especially keeping in mind that there is no return for them.
The Dow Jones article stated that the Treasury spokeswoman did not return its calls.
More Online Casino News | Homepage
