Sens. Chuck Schumer, Cynthia Lummis and Tim Scott think legislation addressing crypto could move through Congress this year – here’s how.
A long, long journey
The narrative
Earlier this month, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told the audience at a “Crypto4Harris” virtual event that he hoped to shepherd crypto legislation through Congress and have President Joe Biden sign the bill into law by the end of 2024. It was a bold promise, one that on first blush seems like a hard pledge to fulfill.
Why it matters
The crypto industry has been begging for issue-specific legislation in the U.S. for years, in the hopes that this legislation may create clear permissions for companies to develop and issue tokens, manage blockchain networks or otherwise operate free of the concern that regulators may come knocking. The closest Congress has gotten so far is the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act, a House bill supported by Financial Services Committee Chair Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.). With a limited number of working days left in the year, the chances for crypto legislation moving through the Senate are slim. So here’s what could happen and the potential roadblocks.
Breaking it down
Last week at the SALT Wyoming Symposium, Sens. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.) laid out a hypothetical that would get crypto legislation passed. According to the lawmakers, the best path comes through the Senate Agriculture Committee, which would focus on commodities law. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), the chair of the committee, has been working on legislation, though she has yet to introduce her bill.
If a bill is voted out of this committee, Lummis said, it would likely become a “Christmas Tree bill,” where lawmakers add on other amendments and provisions, which could include, for example, the SAFER Banking Bill, stablecoin provisions and more.
But any legislation will be a long shot for a variety of reasons, including the limited number of working days left in this year’s legislative calendar.
“It’s surprising how few of those are left after the election,” Lummis said at the SALT event. Moreover, at least some portion of that remaining time will likely be spent working on must-pass bills like the annual National Defense Authorization Act and budget legislation.
It is entirely possible that a crypto provision may be folded into one of these bills, as one legislative staffer told me after Schumer’s remarks, a thought Scott also shared on stage in Wyoming.
“You have an opportunity to get a lot accomplished in a little bit of time because the motivation and the incentives are there,” he said.
The potentially bigger issue is whether any crypto provisions will receive enough support to a) see a bill introduced in the Senate; b) get passed out of committee; and c) pass through the Senate, either as a standalone bill solely focused on crypto issues, as part of a larger financial services-focused bill or within the must-pass pieces of legislation.
While crypto is enjoying some bipartisan support in Congress, it’s still not totally clear if it’s a significant enough issue compared to everything else Congress has on its plate (for example, the fiscal year ends in a month and that’s the first major issue lawmakers will likely have to vote on).
Still, everyone I’ve spoken to in the last few weeks has been cautiously optimistic about legislation moving – if not this year, then certainly next year. The fact that FIT21 did advance out of the House with bipartisan support is a major factor in this assessment, as is the fact that crypto issues are getting more attention from lawmakers than in years past.
