Senator Cynthia Lummis released a revised text of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act on Thursday, five days before the Senate votes on whether to take up the bill, without public backing from the Democrats whose votes decide the outcome.
Cloture on the motion to proceed to H.R. 3633 ripens Tuesday, Sept. 15 at 2:15 p.m. and needs 60 votes, according to the Senate Democratic leadership's floor schedule. Republicans hold 53 seats against 45 Democrats and two independents who caucus with them, per the Senate's party division tally. If every Republican votes to proceed, seven Democrats would be needed to carry the motion.
What Changed in the September Text
- Trading protocols that are not decentralized must register with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and comply with the Bank Secrecy Act, mirroring the treatment Section 10301 already gives them on the securities side, where the Securities and Exchange Commission must spell out how operators meet existing intermediary requirements.
- The decentralized finance title now applies only to spot and cash digital commodity transactions.
- The text clarifies which digital asset activities credit unions may conduct.
"We have incorporated more than 114 separate provisions at my Democrat colleagues' request, and as a result, this bill is a strong bipartisan product," Lummis said in the release.
The text is posted on Lummis's site as an amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 3633, the bill the House passed. It runs four divisions: the Banking Committee's ten titles, the Agriculture Committee's digital commodity intermediary titles, an ethics division and an effective date. Lummis released the previous version on July 22, merging the Banking and Agriculture committees' work with Banking Chairman Tim Scott and Agriculture Chairman John Boozman.
The release names BlackRock, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, Goldman Sachs, Charles Schwab and SoFi as supporters, along with four law enforcement groups: the National Fraternal Order of Police, the National Sheriffs' Association, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives and the Major County Sheriffs of America. However, the most recent CLARITY Act document on the National Sheriffs' Association's own site is a July 31 letter to the Senate signed by its president, Sheriff Troy Wellman, asking senators not to vote on the bill as written, citing exemptions for decentralized finance participants from anti-money-laundering and sanctions requirements. Neither the National Sheriffs' Association nor the Major County Sheriffs of America has posted a statement on the September text.
Seven Democrats — Senators Mark Warner, Angela Alsobrooks, Cory Booker, Catherine Cortez Masto, Ruben Gallego, John Hickenlooper and Raphael Warnock — issued a joint statement the day the July text landed, saying the bill "falls short" on ethics, consumer protection, illicit finance, conflicts of interest and market integrity. None of their offices has posted anything on the September version. The ethics title is one of the areas they named, and it is not among the three changes in the September text. Banking Committee Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren opposes the bill outright, saying in her statement on the July text that the ethics title leaves enforcement gaps.
Read the original report at The Defiant
