House GOP moves to combine central bank digital currency ban with crypto bill

House Republicans are gearing up to retroactively combine GOP legislation that would ban the Federal Reserve from creating a central bank digital currency with a sweeping bipartisan cryptocurrency market structure bill after both bills passed the chamber separately in July.

The House is set to vote Tuesday afternoon on a procedural measure that includes a little-noticed provision that would combine the CBDC ban bill with the CLARITY Act, which would overhaul how crypto tokens are regulated. The CBDC measure, led by House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), passed the lower chamber largely along party lines in July, while the sweeping market structure bill drew support from 78 Democrats.

At the time the two measures passed the House, Republicans on the Financial Services and Agriculture committees objected to combining them on the floor. A push from GOP hard-liners to merge the two bills created a protracted standoff on the floor. The committee leaders didn’t want to jeopardize bipartisan support for the CLARITY Act in hopes of sending a message about its viability in the Senate.

To appease the hard-liners, GOP leaders vowed to include a CBDC ban in Congress’ annual must-pass defense policy bill. Though language banning a CBDC was included in the House-passed National Defense Authorization Act, few Democrats support the provision, meaning it is likely to get stripped out of the bill by the Senate. Bipartisan support is needed to pass the NDAA in the upper chamber.

A spokesperson for House Financial Services Chair French Hill said in a statement that “passing both the CLARITY Act and Anti-CBDC bill were key priorities for members of the House.”

“By combining both measures and sending them to the Senate, the House continues to advance both priorities,” said the spokesperson, Brooke Nethercott. “We stand ready to work with [Banking Chair Tim Scott] and Senator [Cynthia] Lummis on a pathway forward to get both provisions signed into law.”

The move may ultimately prove to be symbolic: The Senate is gearing up to advance its own market structure bill that will need buy-in from some Democrats. Instead of taking up the CLARITY Act, the House’s title, senators appear to be gearing up to advance their own, separate version of the bill called the Responsible Financial Innovation Act.