(RepublicanInformer.com)- A new cryptocurrency rule change has been halted for now after an amendment in the U.S. Senate was blocked by Republican Senator Richard Shelby.
Shelby, from Alabama, attempted to attach a proposal that would boost spending on the military by $50 billion to a bipartisan amendment to the bill. But, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders was having none of it, and he blocked Shelby’s proposal.
Following Sanders’ move, Delaware Democratic Senator Tom Carper tried to introduce that amendment once again, but it was once again blocked as Shelby tried to attach his proposal to it.
That put to an end the bipartisan amendment that was originally put forward by Republican Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. The amendment would have ended up redefining who would be subject to the new regulation requirements for cryptocurrency, as part of the Senate’s infrastructure bill.
The amendment was co-sponsored by Democrats Krysten Sinema and Mark Warner, as well as Republicans Cynthia Lummis and Rob Portman. It also had the support of the Treasury Department.
Following the impasse vote on Monday, Toomey said he was disgusted by the outcome. On the Senate floor, he said:
“Because there’s a difference of opinion on whether or not the senator from Alabama should get a vote on his amendment, because that is not agreed to, the body is refusing to take up an amendment that has broad bipartisan support, that we all know fixes something that badly needs to be fixed.
“This isn’t like a whim of the senator from Pennsylvania. There’s like nobody who disputes that there’s a problem here.”
The amendment called to redefine who “brokers” were in the infrastructure bill so that transaction validators and software developers wouldn’t be subject to the new cryptocurrency reporting requirements.
Leaders in the industry said the current definition of a “broker” according to the infrastructure bill would incorrectly put miners and software developers into the bank of entities who were subject to the new requirements. They say that these entities wouldn’t even have access to the data that the bill would’ve required them to report.
One senator who was in favor of the amendment was Texas Republican Ted Cruz, who said the original “overly broad definition” would “block rapid innovation in cryptocurrencies” as well as “endanger the privacy” of all Americans.
Cruz then attempted to receive approval for a different amendment that would cut the language for the requirements altogether from the bill.
The problem is that Cruz objected to Shelby’s military spending addition, so Shelby then blocked Cruz’s own amendment.
This leaves the Senate at an impasse of where to go from here. Democratic Senator Ron Wyden from Oregon tried to propose a separate amendment, but the Biden administration said it wouldn’t support that one.
Now, it’s unclear where the Senate will go from here, but there are definitely roadblocks on the way to a bipartisan approval of the infrastructure bill.
