• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, April 25, 2022

The Senate will move forward this week week with a vote on Federal Trade Commission nominee Alvaro Bedoya, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says.

“This week, I intend for the Senate to fill the open vacancy on the FTC with Alvaro Bedoya,” the Democrat from New York stated Sunday.

He added that Bedoya's confirmation will give the agency a Democratic majority, allowing it “to investigate and hone in on price gouging by Big Oil amid their stock buybacks and surging profits.”

President Joe Biden first nominated Bedoya last year, then re-nominated him in January after the Senate failed to move forward with a vote.

Last month, the Senate voted 51-50 to advance his nomination, with Vice-President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote.

His confirmation would give the FTC a Democratic majority for the first time during the Biden administration.

Bedoya, a privacy advocate and the founding director of the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law, is best known for proposing curbs on the use of facial-recognition technology.

He has also criticized the commercial use of monitoring technology -- including tracking software that embeds audio beacons in TV ads.

Previously, he served as chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law and its former chairman, Sen. Al Franken (D.-Minnesota).

Schumer's plan to move forward this week comes several days after the U.S. Chamber of Commerce urged lawmakers to delay voting on Bedoya.

“FTC is at an inflection point,” Chamber chief policy officer Neil Bradley said in a letter to Senate leaders. “Mr. Bedoya would be the fifth member of the Commission and his vote would break potential deadlocks over changes in policy or an enforcement matter.”