House-Passed H.R. 3962 Would Ease Online Notarizations

“Laws governing notaries and notarial acts have long been the province of state regulation,” Bonta wrote. “Notarial acts — in California and in sister states — are a matter of traditional state concern, relating to individuals’ important life transactions and involving sensitive private information.”

Bonta argued that H.R. 3962 state-law preemption would weaken state consumer protection efforts.

But Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., who introduced the bill together with Rep. Kelly Armstrong, R-N.D., defended the bill in debate on the House floor.

“States will be able to regulate further protections,” Dean said.

She noted that, when she served in the Pennsylvania state legislature, most of the people she worked with were notaries, and she saw that many people struggled to come to notarization appointments because of lack of transportation.

Other House Bills

The House also has been holding votes on many other measures this week.

House members:

• Voted 416-12 for H.R. 4040, the Advancing Telehealth Beyond COVID-19 Act of 2021, which would extend the current Medicare telehealth coverage rules. In the past, the traditional Medicare program sharply limited coverage for telehealth services, but it temporarily expanded telehealth coverage to help enrollees cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Voted 323-92 for H.R. 3588, the Mathematical and Statistical Modeling Education Act, which would create a $10 million grant program to support efforts to improve statistical modeling education programs.

• Approved H.R. 4586, Risk-Based Credit Examination Act, by a voice vote. The bill would give securities regulators more flexibility when deciding whether a credit rating organization could serve as a “nationally recognized statistical rating organization.” In the past, new credit rating organizations have argued that the current rules shut out new players.

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