Two Republican stablecoin Bills, the House STABLE Act and the Senate GENIUS Act were published last week. Ahead of today’s House Financial Services Committee hearing to discuss the STABLE Act and other digital assets legislation, Democrat Ranking Member Maxine Waters published another stablecoin Bill.She said this is the bipartisan version negotiated with former Committee Chair Patrick McHenry.
In mid 2023, an earlier version of the Bill was passed by the Committee to the fury of Representative Waters. Hence, in order to get support for a full House vote, negotiations continued last year. The biggest area of difference was the delegation of authority to States without federal oversight. The version published today gives the Federal Reserve a far greater role. Both of the new stablecoin bills published by the Republicans make the OCC the regulator for non bank stablecoins and give the Federal Reserve a very limited role to intervene in exigent circumstances, but with five days notice.
“After years of good-faith, bipartisan negotiation and collaboration with regulators and stakeholders, last Congress, the Republican and Democratic Committee staff jointly drafted payment stablecoins legislation that would create a strong federal framework and put consumer protection front and center,” said Congresswoman Waters.
She continued, “At the start of this Congress, Chair Hill extended a hand of bipartisanship to work on stablecoins legislation. I firmly believe that the legislation that I’ve unveiled today provides the best foundation for moving forward and getting urgently needed stablecoins legislation signed into law.” The Democrat’s bill also prevents large technology firms from owning stablecoin firms.
