Some of the U.S. Senate Democrats in the negotiation over the crypto market structure bill filed requested amendments on Friday, seeking a number of their top policy requests in the draft legislation pushed by Republicans in the Senate Agriculture Committee.
The draft they’re trying to change was unveiled as a partisan effort without Democratic sign-off on Wednesday, so now the lawmakers are trying to insert such things as a ban of the president (and other government officials) profiting off of the crypto sector and a demand that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission fill out its slate of commissioners before digital assets rules can go into effect.
The Agriculture Committee is set to hold a hearing next week that could possibly advance the bill to the overall Senate, though many close observers expect the session to be delayed because of the epic snowstorm predicted to strike the Washington area over the weekend.
Still, the Democrats’ amendments are on the record now. Senator Richard Durbin is seeking to ban bailouts of digital-asset issuers, for instance. And it’s the panel’s ranking Democrat, Senator Amy Klobuchar, demanding the quorum of commissioners at the CFTC in a more binding way than in the existing draft bill and Senator Michael Bennet who proposed the anti-corruption effort to limit crypto involvement for senior government officials.
Republican members also pitched changes. such as Senator Tommy Tuberville’s prohibition on crypto platforms affiliated with foreign adversaries of the U.S.
The committee is scheduled to mark up the bill, meaning amendments will be considered before a potential vote to further advance the legislation. But the Senate Banking Committee must also advance its own version of the bill — a process that’s been met with heated debate that derailed an earlier effort at a markup.
Only after the two committees approve of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act can it be moved toward a vote of the overall Senate.
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