UPDATED 4:22 p.m. with vote totals.
WASHINGTON — The House sent stablecoin legislation to President Donald Trump's desk on Thursday after Republican hardliners earlier in the week derailed the party's plans to pass a series of crypto-related bills in quick succession.
The GENIUS Act, the stablecoin bill passed by the Senate, also passed in the House with bipartisan support this afternoon, only days after being waylaid over complaints from the Freedom Caucus, which makes up the most right-wing members of Congress. The ultra conservatives wanted to ensure a bill banning Central Bank Digital Currency wouldn't be wrapped into a larger crypto package.
The original plan of attaching the CBDC bill to the market structure bill, which banking and agriculture lawmakers have worked on for months, was scuttled after pushback House Financial Services Committee Chairman French Hill, R-Ark., and his agriculture committee counterpart, who worried that the inclusion of CBDC legislation would threaten any degree of Democratic support for the market structure bill.
Eventually — after late-night negotiations with House Speaker Mike Johnson — the House voted 217-212 to consider the bills.
"It is my firmly held belief that only by enacting payment stablecoin legislation, and Mr. Speaker, I repeat, and comprehensive market structure reform in this Congress, like we just debated a few minutes ago, only by passing both will this Congress fully usher in the error of digital finance and ensure that consumers are protected whenever they engage with digital assets," Hill said on the House floor on Thursday.
The stablecoin legislation, the piece that most directly affects banks, passed 308-122. Twelve Republicans voted against the bill and 102 Democrats voted for it. The market structure bill, known as the CLARITY Act, passed 294-134.
While some of the nation's largest banks have signaled
"In addition to introducing a new method of transferring value, stablecoins also have the potential to disintermediate core commercial bank activity like deposit taking and lending," the American Bankers Association said in a new letter to House leadership on Thursday. "This concept is not a mere competitive concern; rather it could pose significant risk to the fundamental role banks play in credit intermediation."
The stablecoin bill doesn't go far enough in preventing stablecoin issuers from offering yield-like incentives for consumers to park their money in stablecoins, rather than as bank deposits, the Independent Community Bankers of America has complained.
And the bill includes a workaround for state-chartered, uninsured depository institutions to bypass state guidelines as they look to expand nationwide, the The Independent Bankers Association of Texas and the Conference of State Bank Supervisors said in previous letters to lawmakers.
"This section is also completely unnecessary for a nationwide stablecoin framework, as payment stablecoin issuers would already be authorized by the GENIUS Act to operate nationwide for specified stablecoin-related activities," the CSBS said. "There is simply no justification for this sweeping preemption of state authority."
The CLARITY Act — the HFSC and agriculture market structure bill — now goes to the Senate, where bankers might have another opportunity to get their concerns addressed.
"We understand there may be an opportunity to amend the legislation through other vehicles, including as part of the CLARITY Act, and further, that there will be a significant opportunity to provide comments in the rulemaking process once the bill is enacted," ABA said in the letter.
The CBDC legislation passed by a much narrower margin, 219-210. It faces much tougher odds in the Senate where it might not garner the 60 votes needed for it to pass.
