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Congress is under new pressure to keep millions of Americans in their homes after the Supreme Court blocked the Biden administration’s latest eviction moratorium, The Hill reported. The court said in its 6-3 ruling late Thursday night that it is up to Congress to authorize a freeze on evictions, but lawmakers have been unable to make that happen. Members of Congress are urging state and local governments to quickly get federal rental assistance funds into the hands of eligible recipients. They are also weighing additional legislative action to extend the moratorium and speed up the delivery of rental aid. Democrats narrowly control both the House and the Senate, making congressional action challenging on divisive issues like the eviction ban. But they say they want to prevent a wave of evictions at a time when coronavirus cases have increased due in part to the highly contagious delta variant and the number of unvaccinated Americans.

House Democrats yesterday approved a roughly $3.5 trillion budget that could enable sweeping changes to the nation’s health-care, education and tax laws, overcoming their own internal divisions to take the next step toward enacting President Biden’s broader economic agenda, the Washington Post reported. The 220-to-212 party-line vote came after days of delays as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) scrambled to stave off a revolt from her party’s moderate-leaning lawmakers. The outcome immediately set in motion a laborious effort on Capitol Hill to transform the $3.5 trillion blueprint into a fuller legislative product. Much like the proposal the Senate adopted this month, the House budget is essentially an outline that does not require Biden’s signature. Rather, it is a congressional document that unlocks for Democrats a longer legislative process known as reconciliation — a tactic that allows them to write a tax-and-spending bill that can bypass a Republican filibuster. As part of the forthcoming package, Democrats have pledged to expand Medicare, invest sizable sums in education and family-focused programs, and devote new funds toward combating climate change — fulfilling many of the party’s 2020 campaign pledges. And they have aimed to finance the tranche of new spending through tax hikes targeting wealthy corporations, families and investors, rolling back tax cuts imposed under President Donald Trump. Also, Democrats committed that the House would consider the separate infrastructure package by Sept. 27.

Tucked into a sweeping bipartisan infrastructure bill that passed the Senate earlier this month are measures intended to help provide what many officials say is badly needed regulation of the burgeoning cryptocurrency industry. But some industry and national-security officials warn that the proposal could unintentionally push illicit cryptocurrency transactions into markets where the U.S. government has no reach, adding to the threat to American companies, government agencies and individuals, the Wall Street Journal reported. The provision in the bill requires anyone handling cryptocurrency transactions to report gross proceeds to the Internal Revenue Service, along with the names and addresses of the parties. It is intended to capture billions of dollars in tax revenue the IRS says is lost each year and would also give law enforcement and regulators visibility into a market in which bad actors can too easily operate anonymously. Few dispute the need for disclosure of cryptocurrency transactions as a way to monitor potentially illicit activity. But the bill as written captures corners of the industry not focused on transactions, including everything from miners and stakers to producers of the hardware and software used in crypto markets. Thus some intelligence and law-enforcement officials are joining industry leaders in warning policy makers against overly aggressive regulations that risk exacerbating national-security hazards. Overregulation “may push illicit use and criminal actors deeper into anonymizing methods and corners of the internet that would make it more difficult for law enforcement,” said Jeremy Sheridan, assistant director of the U.S. Secret Service’s investigations office.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Sunday floated a procedural move on the bipartisan infrastructure bill, but the idea did not satisfy a group of moderates who are pushing for a quick vote on passage of the measure, The Hill reported. The House is returning to Washington, D.C., next week in order to pass the Senate-approved $3.5 trillion budget resolution that will pave the way for a social spending bill that can pass with only Democratic votes. Some moderate Democrats are seeking an immediate vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill that the Senate passed earlier this month and have threatened to vote against the budget resolution unless the House first votes on the infrastructure bill. But Pelosi and progressive lawmakers do not want the House to pass the infrastructure bill until the Senate also passes a social spending bill. In an effort to take moderates’ priorities into account, Pelosi said in a letter to colleagues Sunday that she has asked the House Rules Committee to “explore the possibility of a rule that advances both the budget resolution and the bipartisan infrastructure package.” “This will put us on a path to advance the infrastructure bill and the reconciliation bill,” she wrote.