Well, it sure looks this way to me.
For instance,

the bill now includes a provision, supported by some opponents of spam, that directs the Federal Trade Commission to come up with a plan for a no-spam registry.

I think the off shore spammers will love this one: a list comprised of mostly good email addresses! Yea, I know that the spammers are supposed to send in their lists for scrubbing but I suspect joes p*rn shop won’t be sending in their list.

Or, how about:

And it would prohibit private lawsuits against spammers, allowing suits only by providers of e-mail accounts, such as Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp., EarthLink Inc. and America Online Inc., all of which also market to their own members.

What is the deal here? None of these companies have my or your interest at heart. Perhaps the legislation instructs them to create a ‘sue the spammers’ department that will act everytime one of us complains.
No, I read the the senate’s version and it doesn’t create a ‘sue the spammers’ department. In fact, it does not appear to provide any enforcement funding at all.

Enacting the bill could affect direct spending and revenues, but CBO estimates that any such effects would not be significant. S. 1293 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act and would impose no costs on state, local, or tribal governments.

What agency will divert resources track down perps? I may be missing something…maybe manna from heaven…but don’t expect your local federal prosecutors to jump right on your complaint.
Or, how about:

Many in the business community are particularly anxious for a federal law because they want it to supersede existing state laws that they consider draconian.

Much of this one has to do with many of the state laws taking an opt in approach while the federal version is an opt out approach which is just backwards.
How about enforcement
Is any kind of anti spam law really needed at any level? Fraud is a criminal offense and should take care of all the fake adds and phony return addresses. And, my email program dumps 99% of the spam i get right into the junk mail folder. Doesn’t yours?
Via Electrolite and Nathan Newman.