Congressional Investigations Outlook: What to Expect from the 119th Congress

The 119th Congress is underway, and Republicans control both chambers. With President Trump in the White House, both the House and the Senate will focus more of their oversight on the private sector. Continuing a trend over the last few years, the breadth and volume of congressional investigations are likely to expand as more committees and members exercise their oversight authority in more robust ways, including a proliferation of transcribed interview requests and interim staff reports.

Last Congress, House Republicans—led by the Judiciary committee (Rep. Jim Jordan), Oversight committee (Rep. James Comer), and Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (Rep. John Moolenaar)—were very active, and their oversight efforts will continue. After retaking the Senate, Republicans also are poised to flex their oversight authorities. This includes the oversight committees with experienced chairs, such as the Senate Judiciary committee (Sen. Chuck Grassley) and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (Sen. Ron Johnson), but also committees with new chairs, such as Commerce (Sen. Ted Cruz) and Banking (Sen. Tim Scott).

Although it is impossible to capture the full breadth of issues likely to interest this Congress, we expect to see significant congressional investigations activity in the following areas:

China

Artificial Intelligence

PBMs

ESG and Climate “Cartels”

DEI

Banking and Financial Services

China

China will continue to be an area of bipartisan interest and activity this Congress. Although the second iteration of the House’s Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party is likely to lead the way, a variety of committees in both chambers will examine relationships with China across industries and issue areas, including export controls; tariffs; bulk data transfers; human rights; and Taiwan. In particular, Senator Ted Cruz may be anxious to exercise his new authorities as the new chair of the Senate Commerce Committee.

House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party: Despite a once-uncertain future, the House Select CCP Committee is back and fully under new management, as chair Rep. John Moolenaar begins his first full term after taking over for former Rep. Mike Gallagher. The committee’s focus last term included banning the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok. The House Select Committee also released multiple reports criticizing the ways U.S. companies and institutions may have inadvertently supported CCP military and technological objectives, including universities’ and research institutions’ role in supporting CCP military and technological research and financial institutions’ funding of CCP surveillance technologies.

The House Select Committee will likely continue down this path in the 119th Congress, identifying additional industries or companies whose connections to the Chinese economy (or government) raise national security concerns. And it will be emboldened, as it will have the support of top officials in the Trump administration. 

U.S. Critical Infrastructure: The protection of U.S. critical infrastructure, especially from perceived threats posed by China, will remain front and center for many committees. Although the committees will focus on the security of government systems, the private sector may also receive significant scrutiny because most of the U.S.’s critical infrastructure is privately owned.

The Homeland Security and Judiciary committees in both the House and Senate should lead the way. For example, in December 2024, the Biden administration briefed all members about China infiltrating U.S. telecommunications providers, and this issue will continue to receive attention from several congressional committees in each chamber, including Commerce and Intelligence committees. 

Incoming Senate Judiciary chair Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is a fierce advocate for bolstering U.S. critical infrastructure and securing Americans’ data, especially when it comes to protecting the government’s own systems. Grassley has called on federal agencies to mature their cybersecurity protocols and launched several oversight inquiries into the recent intrusions into the telecommunications sector. The protection of critical infrastructure necessarily includes an examination of the private sector, much like the House Homeland and Select CCP joint report on potential threats from China to U.S. port infrastructure.

However, the relationship between Republicans in Congress and the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) may be complicated. Both the House Judiciary’s Weaponization subcommittee and Sen. Rand Paul, the incoming chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, have raised concerns about CISA’s role in moderating online speech. Such investigations are poised to continue in some form this Congress and may extend to the private sector companies who were previously on the receiving end of disinformation claims.

Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries: Last year, a divided Congress quietly included the Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act of 2024 in a bipartisan funding bill. This new law, which went into effect in June 2024, provides the Federal Trade Commission with authority to investigate and punish data brokers that make the “sensitive” data of U.S. persons available to foreign adversaries, defined to include China. Not to be outdone, the Biden Administration issued an Executive Order prohibiting U.S. companies from selling or otherwise making available sensitive U.S. data to designated countries of concern (like China) and designated covered persons (e.g., non-U.S. persons residing in China or working for Chinese-controlled companies). These regulations create the U.S.’s first cross-border data transfer program and may affect many U.S. companies that share sensitive data with third parties, even if the recipient is not in a country concern like China. Although these new regulatory regimes will be administered by executive branch agencies, they were built with support from Congress, and we expect the House Select CCP and other committees to continue examining these same issues. Additionally, these regulatory regimes may set the stage for congressional inquiries and legislation into other issue areas, such as the Biosecure Act, which would limit work with Chinese biotechnology companies and narrowly missed being included in the December 2024 NDAA.

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Artificial Intelligence

Broad AI Impacts: Congress will continue to spend significant time focusing on the benefits and risks of generative and other predictive forms of artificial intelligence (AI), including how these emerging technologies may affect nearly every other area and industry under scrutiny.

As the new chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Ted Cruz (R-TX) will likely become an increasingly important voice on AI. Cruz, who has advocated for a light touch on AI, was sharply critical of the Biden Administration’s work on AI and supported President Trump’s revocation of President Biden’s Executive Order on AI and otherwise.  

Although the exact shape of AI policy in Congress is yet to be determined, the December 2024 report from the bipartisan House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence provides a roadmap of areas of interest and future congressional activity. The report outlines several key areas of focus, including consumer protection, healthcare, and intellectual property. Last Congress, the House and Senate Judiciary Committees both held multi-part hearings addressing issues like AI and intellectual property and AI and identity issues. These efforts to understand, and potentially regulate, the AI and related industries will continue.

In addition, we expect congressional staff of nearly every committee to be interested in understanding how AI might affect their specific areas of interest. The recent hearing by the Senate Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security on “Protecting Consumers from Artificial Intelligence Enabled Fraud and Scams,” is one example of how committees will view many of their traditional issues through the lens of AI.

Child Protection Issues: Committees in both houses are likely to continue to focus on the protection of children online. During the last congress, the Senate Judiciary committee held a widely publicized hearing about protecting children from online exploitation. This Congress is likely to pick up several pieces of legislation to address these issues, so any committee inquiries and hearings may track them closely. Senator Cruz recently started the charge when he introduced a resolution to nullify a Biden-era agency order expanding the availability of subsidized wi-fi hotspots to schoolchildren.

Also, last congress, the House Energy and Commerce committee advanced a pair of data privacy and kids’ online safety legislation: the Kids Online Safety Act (H.R. 7891) and Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (H.R. 7890). H.R. 7890 would have amended the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 to strengthen online protections for users under the age of 17, referred to as COPPA 2.0. The bill aimed to ban targeted advertising to children and teens, prohibit internet companies from collecting the data of 13-to-17-year-olds without consent, and require direct notice if data is being stored or transferred outside of the United States. H.R. 7891 imposed a “duty of care” on online platforms and required the provision of certain safeguards. Although both bills passed the Senate with strong support, the House remained divided, and the chambers were not able to reach a compromise to have included them in the must-pass bills the end of last congress. But with strong support in one chamber, it is likely that these issues—and similar bills—will continue to be a topic of interest for the relevant committees.

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PBMs

Congressional scrutiny of the role of Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) in the healthcare industry has been bipartisan and is likely to continue during this congress. Senator Grassley led a push during the prior congress for increased accountability from PBMs. This push likely will be echoed in the House and may be led by House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), who held a hearing and issued a staff report last congress summarizing the committee’s findings from its investigation of PBMs.

Congressional scrutiny also is likely to persist in light of the attention that PBMs will receive from the executive branch. During his first term, President Trump explored PBM reform through regulation, specifically, removing protection for rebates and price concessions offered to Medicare Part D plan sponsors and PBMs. The rule was withdrawn during the Biden administration and, although it is unclear if the Trump administration plans to revisit that strategy, it may have support in a Republican Congress. The Trump administration also inherited the FTC’s September 2024 administrative action against the some of the nation’s largest PBMs and their affiliated GPOs for allegedly engaging in anticompetitive and unfair rebating practices. With all this attention, it is unlikely that Congress will move to the sidelines.

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ESG and Climate “Cartels”

Under Chairman Jim Jordan, the House Judiciary committee launched an investigation of ESG practices related to climate in December 2022, before the last congress officially started. As part of that investigation, the committee sent dozens of letters and issued several subpoenas, which culminated in an interim staff report in June 2024 and a second interim staff report in December 2024.

The committee has indicated that it may expand the scope of this investigation. In August 2024, the committee sent letters to 130 companies about their involvement in Climate Action 100+ and, in December 2024, the committee sent similar letters to 60 companies about their involvement in a climate investor initiative. These issues also have drawn attention from several state attorneys general, as well as the incoming chair of the Federal Trade Commission, who testified last year before the House Energy and Commerce Committee that “[t]he collusion alleged by the Judiciary Committee” in its June 2024 report “should be the subject of scrutiny by the Commission.”

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DEI

Between Republican control of Congress and the White House, federal efforts targeting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs have already begun. Last congress, the Republican-led Dismantle DEI Act of 2024 sought to ban DEI programs in federal agencies and prohibit use of federal funding for DEI initiatives. Regardless of the Dismantle DEI Act’s prospects for passage in this new Congress, congressional investigations into these issues may be a first step in seeking to curtail or end DEI policies. This scrutiny will extend to private companies, some of which have already begun to reevaluate DEI messaging and initiatives.

One particular area of focus may be DEI programs on university campuses. Failure to comply with administrative changes made by the Trump administration could be accompanied by strict penalties, including the withholding of federal funding and denial of accreditation. For this reason, congressional investigations into colleges and universities that use federal money to support DEI programs and policies may be more likely.

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Banking and Financial Services

Artificial Intelligence in Financial Services: During the waning days of the prior Congress, in November 2024, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) and Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-Cal.) introduced two bipartisan measures on artificial intelligence (AI) in financial services that may serve as a starting point for legislative and oversight efforts during this Congress. The bill (H.R. 10262) would have required banking agencies to study the application of AI in the banking sector, and the resolution (H. Res. 1600) would have codified findings from a July 18, 2024, report of the Committee’s bipartisan AI Working Group. Although Chairman McHenry has retired, the incoming chair, Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.), was a former banker and Department of Treasury official and also led the committee’s AI Working Group last congress. For these reasons, inquiries and oversight related to these issues are likely to continue.

Digital Assets: The new leaders of key committees have indicated that cryptocurrency and stablecoin are likely to receive attention from both chambers of congress, and possibly from a bicameral working group. The new chair of the House Financial Services Committee, Rep. French Hill, was formerly the chair of the subcommittee responsible for these digital assets, and therefore is expected to prioritize related issues before the full committee. The new chair of the Senate Banking Committee, Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.), created the first-ever subcommittee on digital assets, which will be chaired by Senator Cynthis Lummis (R-Wyo.) and address cryptocurrency issues. Senator Lummis immediately urged her colleagues “to urgently pass bipartisan legislation establishing a comprehensive legal framework for digital assets that strengthens the U.S. dollar with a strategic bitcoin reserve.” Although both committees are poised to act on these issues, their respective approaches may not be consistent with each other or the policy prerogatives of the White House. Although the conventional wisdom is that Republicans generally consider cryptocurrency to be a unique asset class that should not be regulated in the same manner as stocks and bonds, last Congress the House passed legislation (H.R. 4763) authorizing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to oversee cryptocurrency, but it died in the Senate. With President Trump and First Lady Melanie Trump launching their own cryptocurrency tokens (meme coins) on the eve of inauguration, Congress will dedicate time to these issues.   

Banking Agency Consolidation: According to press reports, the Trump administration is exploring potential options to reduce, consolidate, or eliminate the federal banking regulatory agencies. A regulatory change of this magnitude would require congressional action, and therefore would spark a substantial amount of oversight and fact-finding about how it might be accomplished. In particular, the transition team was reportedly discussing plans to eliminate the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)—which supervises banks that are chartered by the states that do not join the Federal Reserve System—and move its deposit insurance function to the Treasury Department. Other reported plans included consolidating the FDIC, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Federal Reserve; or, rather than merging the agencies, allow only one to continue and regulate banks while the other two would have only nonregulatory staff. 

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