As we eagerly await word from the House Energy and Commerce Committee's data privacy working group, Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) once again has resurrected the problematic Online Privacy Act (OPA).
In February 2025, Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie (R-KY) and Vice Chairman John Joyce, M.D. (R-PA) announced the establishment of a data privacy working group "to bring members and stakeholders together to explore a framework for legislation that can get across the finish line." (For more information please see my contemporaneous post to the Free State Foundation blog).
Shortly thereafter, the working group solicited public comment on a Request for Information that I summarized in a follow-up blog post.
In a January Perspectives from FSF Scholars summarizing privacy-related legislative activity in 2025, I shared speculation that the working group might introduce a bill "soon." Separate reporting around the same time indicated that the working group "intend[s] to take up action on a broader, comprehensive federal privacy measure in spring 2026."
In the interim, Representative Lofgren for the fourth time has introduced the OPA, a draft bill first unveiled in 2019 and then again in 2021 and 2023.
As I pointed out in "A Tale of Three Data Privacy Bills: Federal Legislative Stalemate Enables Bad State Laws," a January 2022 Perspectives, the OPA has two top-level shortcomings: (1) it "is silent on the issue of preemption," and thus fails to address the state-level "patchwork" problem that in the intervening years has only gotten worse; and (2) it creates a private right of action that, unlike exclusive enforcement by the FTC, would be far more likely to benefit the plaintiffs' bar than consumers.
With the vernal equinox exactly one week in the rear-view mirror, it remains possible that the working group will introduce (presumably preferable) comprehensive data privacy legislation this spring.
Time will tell.
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