Anti-Cbdc Surveillance State Act
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 580, I call up the bill (H.R. 1919) to amend the Federal Reserve Act to prohibit the Federal reserve banks from offering certain products or services directly to an individual, to prohibit the use of central bank digital currency for monetary policy, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. HILL of Arkansas. 1919.
This bill has been before us in this House Chamber. We debated it in the last Congress. It has had the outstanding leadership support and advocacy by our majority whip here in the House, Mr. Tom Emmer of Minnesota. I rise in strong support.
At stake is a fundamental choice about the future of money in America, a choice between freedom or government control. Central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, put the government at the center of every financial transaction: monitoring, controlling, and possibly restricting how Americans could use their own hard-earned money. An American Government-controlled digital dollar threatens to open the door to government overreach here at home.
It would threaten individual privacy and stifle innovation by undermining progress that we have seen from private-sector solutions like we just talked about on the House floor, privately issued U.S. dollar-backed payment stablecoins.
That is a continuation of the evolution of the private-sector guiding the expanse of our money, how we use our money to make payments, formerly starting out with cash. We wrote checks. We use debit cards and ATM cards at the point of sale. We use credit cards. We can send money by wire transfer or by an electronic check. The private sector has innovated all along that continuum of financial technology, and that is why today we don't want the Fed to drive that, to potentially control it, to issue it, for individuals to bank at the Fed and be subject to these risks to privacy or surveillance. Let's stick with the approach of private-sector solutions.
We have already seen small glimpses of this possibility under the prior administration. The chair of the House Financial Services Subcommittee for Oversight and Investigations, Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania, has been having a robust discussion about the debanking policies of the prior administration for politically disfavored industries.
The capability for the government then to follow on and directly freeze or delete Americans' funds on a whim is not compatible with our values, our cherished freedoms, our way of life, or even the past approach to the evolution of payments in our country.
Moreover, a government-run digital dollar would put the Federal Reserve potentially in direct competition with the private sector. Further, a CBDC would create unnecessary risks by consolidating financial power within the Federal Government, limiting choice and threatening the very innovation that made American financial markets the strongest in the world.
For all these reasons, I am thankful that consistently my friend, our colleague, Majority Whip Tom Emmer, has been leading the charge to prohibit the implementation of a U.S. central bank digital currency. I thank him for the work he has done to elevate this issue in the Congress and bring this bill before us once again for a vote on this House floor.
I hope all my colleagues can recognize that Article I determines how we issue money and how we value it, that that is a power of the Congress, and that we are not delegating it to the executive. We control that in Article I. This bill says that you can't issue a CBDC without that specific explicit authority and direction from the Congress.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record the Congressional Budget Office estimate for this bill.
H.R. 1919, ANTI-CBDC SURVEILLANCE STATE ACT, AS REPORTED BY THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES ON MAY 6, 2025 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ By fiscal year, millions of dollars-- ----------------------------------- 2025 2025-2030 2025-2035 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Direct Spending (Outlays)........... 0 0 0 Revenues............................ * * * Increase or Decrease (-) in the * * * Deficit............................ Spending Subject to Appropriation 0 0 0 (Outlays).......................... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ * = between -$500,000 and $500,000.
Increases net direct spending in any of the four consecutive 10-year periods beginning in 2036? No.
Increases on-budget deficits in any of the four consecutive 10-year No periods beginning in 2036? No.
Statutory pay-as-you-go procedures apply? Yes.
Mandate Effects:
Contains intergovernmental mandate? No.
Contains private-sector mandate? No.
H.R. 1919 would prohibit the Federal Reserve banks from providing products or services directly to individual consumers and from maintaining such accounts on their behalf. The bill also would prohibit testing, studying, developing, creating, or implementing a central bank digital currency and bar the banks from using such a currency to implement monetary policy.
The bill's prohibition on the Federal Reserve studying the use of digital currency would result in administrative cost savings. Such savings increase remittances from the Federal Reserve to the Treasury, which are recorded in the budget as revenues. CBO estimates that enacting the bill would increase revenues by an insignificant amount over the 2025-2035 period.
The CBO staff contact for this estimate is Nathaniel Frentz. The estimate was reviewed by H. Samuel Papenfuss, Deputy Director of Budget Analysis. Phillip L. Swagel, Director, Congressional Budget Office.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure to introduce the author of this important legislation, and I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Emmer), the majority whip of the U.S. House of Representatives.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, first, I will thank the members of the House Financial Services Committee and the members of the House Agriculture Committee for all the work that they have put in on both sides of the aisle. It was significant hours for multiple years, basically the last three Congresses, in thinking through what is the future of digital assets, how are they best regulated, what is the role of United States Government in oversight, what is the future of money in terms of the use of a blockchain.
Members in these committees have worked extensively. Likewise over in the Energy and Commerce Committee, the idea of blockchain technology at large outside financial institutions has garnered a tremendous amount of bipartisan work.
This House wants to make sure that we prepare this country for a prosperous, free, open Web3 technology as we go into seeing the benefits of writing applications on a blockchain. We will see competition in blockchains, just as we saw competition in operating systems in computing. I think that breeds a lot of excitement.
No one can actually do that if we don't have clear rules of the road. We have spent this morning debating those rules of the road.
The CLARITY Act that we debated on this House floor provides that market framework for the use of digital assets, custodying digital assets, investing in digital assets, or dealing or raising capital around them. It clearly defines what should be treated as a commodity versus what should be treated as a security.
We talked about that important payment device on a blockchain for use in that marketplace that is outlined in the CLARITY Act. That is a dollar-backed stablecoin.
We want the U.S. to dominate in financial technology and payments, just as we do for the vast majority of payments around the world in dollars. That is delivered by the bipartisan work in the Senate on the GENIUS Act.
I want to start by thanking those Members. I also recognize the incredibly hardworking staff members on the House Committee on Agriculture and the House Committee on Financial Services who have worked together unbelievably, capably, cooperatively, and effectively over these last two Congresses, as they did at the height of the cleanup from the financial crisis in 2008 when House Financial Services and the Agriculture Committee came together to write rules about the swap market.
I particularly thank Nick, Jack Jackson, Lindsey, and Paul on the staff at the House Agriculture Committee. They did great. I thank Nick, Allison, and our team at House Financial Services for their staff leadership.
Mr. Speaker, this bill we are debating today is essential. The ranking member seems to think that I am interested in the subject of a central bank digital currency, and I am. I have spent the better part of the last 5 years studying central bank digital currencies outside the United States and talking to officials inside the United States about whether that is a good idea or a bad idea.
Over those years, it is not out of ignorance that I have come to the conclusion that it is a bad idea. One of the contributing factors to my determining that I don't believe it is an idea whose time has come, to supplement private-sector innovation in this Nation, is actually Congressman Jim Himes' white paper that he shared with me years ago. I thought it was well-written, and it was another indication that this was not the direction to go in.
Since that time, I have visited with other central banks around the world, in Europe and other places, that make me even more certain that we should rely on private-sector innovation that, in turn, can create the tokenized money, which we have talked about all morning, but doesn't do it in a way that can surveil your work, take over your life, have outcomes that you heard from Congressman Davidson and Congressman Emmer, about the examples of debanking that we witnessed in Canada or the policy debanking we witnessed in the Obama administration and, to a degree, the Biden administration.
Americans have made it clear: We don't want the Federal Government controlling how we spend, save, or send our money in our personal lives. We have witnessed firsthand the dangers when government wields that power unchecked, and you heard examples of that this morning.
Americans want and deserve control over their own money, and we have tried to institutionalize that in all the work we have done in both of these committees in this digital assets innovation and reform space.
We believe in self-custody. I have self-custody in the analog world of cash and investments. Why can't I have that custody, that self- control, in my digital financial space? I don't understand why one can't recognize the authorities that we have on our person-- constitutionally guaranteed, guaranteed by law--in an analog context? Why can't we demand the same?
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source