The US Senate Agriculture Committee is holding its first markup hearing on crypto market structure legislation, giving lawmakers a chance to debate and vote on changes and possibly advance the actual legislation.
ND (11:30 a.m. ET): After less than an hour of debate and just a handful of amendments, the Senate Agriculture Committee voted to advance its market structure legislation to the full Senate on a party-line vote (12 lawmakers voted for it, 11 against). All eyes are now back on the Senate Banking Committee, which postponed its own markup hearing earlier this month and has yet to set a new date.
ND (11:28 a.m. ET): Unmentioned so far in Thursday’s hearing: The crypto markets themselves, which were down sharply between 4% and 7% over the past 24 hours of trading. Bitcoin was hovering around $84,000 at press time.
JH (11:24 a.m. ET): We went from the Democrat amendment to a Republican amendment intended to block foreign adversaries of the United States from interfering in the US crypto markets. Senator Tommy Tuberville pushed for the amendment “to ensure that our digital markets are not compromised by our enemies.”
But Tuberville agreed to withdraw his amendments with an understanding of “what we’re trying to accomplish today,” he said. So he asked that the ideas may come up again later.
ND (11:22 a.m. ET): More from Booker previously:
“What I and so many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle see is that we are standing on the edge of extraordinary humanity and transformative breakthroughs that can give Americans a financial system that is faster, cheaper and more inclusive,” he said. “I’ve seen in my own community that the system we have right now often screws over customers, hurts their ability to access financial markets. There’s a democratizing force, or at least potential, moving across our country and across the world.”
Senator Adam Schiff of California also commented that Democrats had a task force to support crypto legislation, comparing crypto to artificial intelligence: “We want these jobs. We want this industry to stay in the United States, and that means we need to have rules of the road where we’re not essentially making decisions through litigation.”
However, he expected the bill to move along party lines because of the bill’s partisan nature, he said.
JH (11:17 a.m. ET): The Democratic opening amendments fell as expected on party lines, including the prominent issue intended to target President Donald Trump’s crypto business interests.
It has been a cordial disagreement so far today, with Democrats cautiously charging that Republicans have abandoned negotiations and Republicans cautiously suggesting that differences can be resolved later.
ND (11:14 a.m. ET): The second amendment offered, this time by Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, would prohibit the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department from “providing digital commodity intermediaries with a taxpayer-funded bailout” in the event of bank failure, pointing to Silicon Valley Bank, Silvergate Bank and Signature Bank.
Boozman said “nothing in the bill would give the CFTC authority” to provide bankruptcy relief, calling the amendment “unnecessary.”
The amendment failed 11-12 on party lines.
ND (11:08 a.m. ET): The first amendment, offered by Senator Michael Bennett, a Colorado Democrat, addressed Democrats’ concerns about US President Donald Trump’s profits from his family’s various crypto interests and businesses.
“I think this issue goes to the heart of our democracy,” Bennett said. “This amendment is not about crypto or even specifically about President Trump. It is about returning to a system of government and ethics that we believed the American people deserved.”
Boozman said he opposed the amendment because it reached “way beyond” the agriculture committee’s jurisdiction.
The amendment failed 11-12 on party line votes.
ND (10:56 a.m. ET): Thursday’s hearing will see lawmakers put forward changes to the underlying text that the committee released last week. As senators worked on bipartisan legislation, committee chairman John Boozman said in a statement last week that “fundamental differences in policy” remained and members of the committee had not agreed on the text that was released.
Senator Cory Booker, the Democrat leading negotiations on the bill, said in opening remarks that lawmakers were close to agreement on key issues, pointing to US President Donald Trump and his family’s crypto connections as an outstanding area of concern, as well as the lack of a firm agreement on quorums at federal agencies.
“In football terms, we moved from our own goal line all the way down 70 yards. We’re almost in the red zone on this bill, and it frustrates me because I see a bipartisan slide to land this plane, to punch through than zone,” Booker said.
Boozman said in his own opening remarks that lawmakers had made “really significant progress” in putting the bill together.
“Advancing this bill is the first step, and there are many steps to be taken to achieve these goals,” he said. “I also encourage the administration and Senate leadership to coordinate and ensure that the CFTC is fully constituted and adequately funded.”
