A Republican US senator who has been at the center of discussions on the crypto market structure bill that is the industry’s top policy priority, Senator Cynthia Lummis, said the White House has resisted the ethics language she clashed with Democrats.
That leaves the Wyoming lawmaker as a middleman trying to satisfy fellow Democrats in bipartisan talks while convincing the White House to come on board, she said Tuesday at the Blockchain Association policy summit in Washington. She nevertheless thinks that the negotiators should unveil their working plan by the end of the week and officially annotate it next week.
Lummis said she and Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego proposed language on ethics. While she hasn’t been explicit about the details, one of the sticking points for Democrats has been their demand that top government officials should not be allowed to profit from the industry over which they hold political authority — primarily aimed at President Donald Trump and his family’s crypto businesses.
She said Democrats were also trying to get assurances that members of their party would be appointed as commissioners of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission, something the White House has so far refused to do, despite the laws’ intent to create bipartisan commissions.
“The White House backed down and said, ‘You can do better than that,’ so that was unacceptable to the White House,” she said. Lummis said she was reconvening with colleagues “to give it another try.”
Lummis is chairman of the digital assets subcommittee that is part of the Senate Banking Committee – one of two groups that must approve a bill, also including the Agriculture Committee.
“It’s just time to reveal a product,” she said, while acknowledging that legislative language is evolving quickly. “We’re in prime time now. We’re in the last two weeks.”
The industry is growing nervous after weeks of closed-door discussions that didn’t involve outside input, she suggested.
“This product will be so powerful once we’re done,” said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, the Democrat who has been Lummis’ crypto partner for years. “Because even the House hasn’t addressed all of the issues that we’re addressing with this bill. It hasn’t even addressed decentralized financial exchanges,” she said, referring to the Clarity Act that the House approved earlier this year.
