RM Warren Speech in Opposition to Clarity Act Markup

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Right now, American families all across this country are struggling. The cost of groceries is up, the cost of utilities is up, the cost of health care is up. We could be working right now on changes in the law that would help bring down prices and help unrig our economy. You know, we could be working on capping credit card interest rates every day that we fail to deliver. Families are charged an extra $368 million in interest. We could be preventing big banks from saddling customers with overdraft fees. Every year that we fail to deliver, families could be paying up to $5 billion a year that they otherwise would be able to keep. We could be stopping rampant fraud and theft on payment platforms. Our failure to deliver here means that Americans are paying hundreds of billions of dollars after getting tricked and trapped. But instead of that, we're spending our time working on a bill written by the crypto industry for the crypto industry. Nothing made it into this bill that wasn't approved by the crypto industry. And why? Why are we working on this? According to a survey by crypto news outlet Coindesk, quote, crypto is at the bottom of U.S. voters' priority heading into elections. Just 1% of respondents rank crypto as their top concern. Look, our job is to serve the American people. Our job is not to advance a pro-industry crypto bill that will put American consumers, American investors, and our national security and our financial system at risk. Our job is not to advance a pro-industry crypto bill that will grease the skids for the president of the United States' crypto grift while tens of millions of Americans can't afford the basics. Many members of this committee have underscored the importance of getting this bill right. And despite multiple calls for a public hearing on this bill, calls from Senator Reid, Senator Kennedy, Senator Van Hollen, Senator Smith, we have never had a single hearing on this bill. And today, Mr. Chairman, you are shutting down members of this committee who have amendments to strengthen this bill. You ruled out more than a dozen amendments because of, quote, procedural requirements. And take a look at what got ruled out. This includes a fix requested by the National Sheriff's Association to close a massive loophole in the current bill that would make it harder for law enforcement officials to go after cartels and criminals using decentralized platforms to launder money. So the Sheriff's concerns have just been cut out. This includes a fix from community banks to stop a significant flight of deposits out of the banking system that will hurt small businesses and communities across the country. An amendment to help community banks? We won't even get a hearing today, much less a vote. Now, Mr. Chairman, you could simply reverse your ruling right now, and I would welcome a full debate on every single Democratic and Republican amendment that has been filed to fix the very real flaws in this bill. Look, this bill is just not ready for prime time. First, the draft in front of us would blow a hole in our securities laws that have protected investors since 1929. Most Americans don't want their pensions at risk so that a few crypto billionaires can juice their own profits. Second, this bill declares open season on defrauding American consumers who use crypto. The bill wipes out a huge number of state-level protections against fraud. Third, the bill puts our financial system at risk by repeating the mistakes of 2008, letting the banks load up on risky debts, letting them scrape off the profits, and then when it all comes crashing down, come back to the American taxpayer for a bailout. Fourth, the bill puts our national security at greater risk. Just three days ago, three days ago, the Treasury Department issued an alert warning that Iran is exploiting crypto businesses to move their money around. Multiple public analyses document that drug cartels are shifting their money laundering to crypto and, quote, the cops can't keep up. And finally, the bill doesn't lift even the tiniest finger to address the Trump administration's crypto-related corruption. Since taking office last year, President Trump and his family have amassed a staggering $1.4 billion in gains from crypto deals alone. No president and no one in Congress should be allowed to profit from crypto at the same time that they are enforcing rules to regulate it. This kind of corruption undermines our democracy and it undermines the legitimacy of the crypto industry. It will keep right on growing if Congress fails to rein it in. Now a year ago, some of you may remember, Republicans sat in this very room and made one promise after another as they passed the Genius Act. What did they promise? They promised we'll close the national security loopholes. They promised we'll address glaring ethics problems. They promised we'll fix the yield issue. Republicans told us not to worry about the gaps in the first crypto bill because the second bill, the bill we have today, would fix every one of those problems. Well, today we are voting on the second bill and every one of those problems still exists today. And this time, the same Republicans are shutting down amendments that would make the fixes they promised a year ago. This markup is our chance to fix these problems. And until we fix these problems, none of us, Republican or Democrat, should advance this bill out of committee or onto the Senate floor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.