The United States Capitol building is seen on April 28, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Kayla Bartkowski | Getty images
The Judicial Committee of the United States Representatives House on Monday to transfer the antimonopoly work of the Federal Commerce Commission to the Department of Justice as part of a budgetary reconciliation package.
The proposal would allocate funds to transfer the staff and cases of the FTC to the Department of Justice and reflect a Republican bill aimed at transferring all federal antiponopoly work to an agency.
The two agencies have shared the federal antitrust jurisdiction, intended to protect themselves against anti -competitive commercial behavior, for more than 100 years.
An FTC spokesman declined to comment.
The proposal would allow the Chief of the Doj antimonopoolio division to restructure the merged agency. The language echoes a bill of the Chamber presented by the representative Ben Cline, a Republican of Virginia.
The American senator Mike Lee, a republican of Utah, presented a similar bill in previous sessions and has defended the idea of merging the two agencies.
It is not clear if the proposal will exceed the Budget Reconciliation Processwhich only requires the support of a majority in the Senate controlled by the Republicans, without going through the 60 votes of the upper chamber.
Critics of the proposal say that the antitrust application would weaken.
