Greetings from Portsmouth, New Hampshire!

Next week is shaping up to be a busy one on Capitol Hill as both houses of Congress are slated to hold high-profile hearings on a potential federal privacy bill. On Tuesday, the House Committee on Energy & Commerce will host the first hearing at 10 a.m. Committee Chair Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., announced the hearing in a video introduction and noted it will help in getting feedback for national legislation while adding that self-regulation has not worked. The witness panel has yet to be announced publicly. 

The witness panel for next Wednesday's Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation hearing, however, has been announced. Witnesses from the Internet Association, Retail Industry Leaders Association, BSA | The Software Alliance, the 21st Century Privacy Coalition, and the Interactive Advertising Bureau will all take part. Of course, similar to a previous round of congressional hearings on privacy, there's been an outcry in the "Twittersphere" that this panel only represents industry and not privacy advocacy. If this round is like the previous one, there will likely be a second Senate hearing with more representatives from consumer protection, but, I'm only guessing. 

Keep on the lookout next week for Angelique Carson's latest reporting on the ground from these hearings. 

On the state level, Angelique also reported on this week's hearing in Sacramento at the California State Assembly on the Consumer Privacy Protection Act. The three-hour event featured expert testimony from industry, advocacy and academia. As we get closer to the Jan. 1, 2020, implementation date, concerns about some of the law's definitions and obligations are growing among the privacy community. For more details on this, be sure to check out Angelique's reporting here. 

A final note: We're hosting our CCPA Comprehensive in Fremont, California, next week. For those of you going, we hope this event will help you get the tools and answers you need as you ramp up your compliance efforts. For those of you who won't be able to make it, have no fear, we're watching this space closely and will continue to feature practical programming at our events. Our Global Privacy Summit in Washington will be next up for that in-depth programming. Registration for Summit is still open, for now, so be sure to get your ticket before it's too late.