The chances of the Senate passing legislation on crypto market structure are increasing as opposition to the Responsible Financial Innovation Act grows on Capitol Hill and among influential constituencies. Speaking Tuesday at the Blockchain Association’s annual policy summit in Washington, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), one of his party’s lead negotiators on the bill, said growing frustration with President Trump’s refusal to appoint Democrats to the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) or the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could derail passage of the measure.
Adding to Democrats’ concerns is the widespread perception that the Supreme Court is poised to grant the president the power to fire commissioners of nominally independent agencies like the CFTC and SEC at will.
“It’s a deep concern,” Booker says Decrypt at the event. “This is a massive expansion of presidential power. We’ve already seen what (Trump) has done with that power.”
Booker said he was pushing to insert language into the bill that would ensure the commissions remain “balanced and fair” regardless of the Supreme Court’s decision in the ongoing case over Trump’s alleged firing of Democratic federal Commerce Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter.
By law, independent five-member commissions, such as the CFTC, SEC, FTC, and Federal Communications Commission (FCC), must include two members from the minority party. But Trump has fired Democratic commissioners and has so far refused to fill the empty positions.
The CFTC is currently led by a single Republican commissioner, Acting Chair Caroline Pham. Trump’s pick to become president, Mike Selig, refused during his Senate confirmation hearing last month to commit to urging the president to add commissioners. He also would not commit to seeking additional resources for the agency, although it is set to take on considerable new responsibilities for overseeing crypto markets.
“The CFTC is capable of operating with one chairman,” Selig said.
Related: CFTC Gives Formal Blessing to Crypto Spot Trading on a Registered Exchange
Another sticking point in the Senate bill is Democrats’ demand to add ethics language to the measure, following Trump and his family’s high-profile involvement in issuing and trading cryptocurrencies.
Speaking at the Blockchain Association event, one of Booker’s Republican counterparts, Sen. Cynthia Lummis (WY), said she and Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona have developed ethics language that she hopes to present to the banking committee next week.
“Our staff is exhausted,” Lummis said. by CryptoRank. “It’s just time to unveil a product. We’re prime time now. We’re in the last two weeks,” before the long recess that will drag Congress into an election year, where it will become more difficult to make progress on major legislation.
As negotiations on a proposed market structure law continue, politically influential groups have also expressed concerns. On Monday, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federal of Teachers, wrote to Senators Tim Scott (R-SC) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Senate Banking Chair and Ranking Member, respectively, to urge them to scrap the bill altogether.
“This legislation poses serious risks to the pensions of working families and the overall stability of the economy. » Weingarten’s letter said. “Rather than providing desperately needed regulation and common-sense safeguards, this bill exposes working families – families who currently have no involvement or connection to cryptocurrency – to economic risk and threatens the stability of their retirement security.”
With 1.8 million members, the AFT is one of the largest unions in the country and an important voting base for the Democratic Party.
“We are particularly concerned that this legislation would allow non-crypto companies to place their shares on the blockchain and escape the entire securities regulatory framework that currently exists,” the letter adds. “This would allow crypto to completely avoid requirements that protect investors in securities, such as registration, reporting, and regulation of intermediaries that facilitate transactions.”
Lummis said she hopes to have a bill ready for the committee to vote on next week. But with time running out and other major legislation such as health care subsidies likely to eat up space on the legislative calendar, the prospects for the crypto market structure bill appear bleak.
